


Boltagon Twins

by Blue_Hood



Series: Power Prompts [11]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Inhumans (TV 2017), Marvel (Comics), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adoption, Afterlife Colony (Marvel), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Alternate Universe - Twins, Avengers Family, Brothers, Family Reunions, Gen, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Inhuman Tony Stark, Inhumans (Marvel), James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Mentors, Mute Tony Stark, Muteness, Superpowers, Tony Stark Acting as Harley Keener's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro, Twins, United Nations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 25,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27269965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Hood/pseuds/Blue_Hood
Summary: Expansion of Chapter 37 of What Superpower Should Tony Stark Have?What if Tony Stark wasn't born Tony Stark? What is he was born Ahura Boltagon, Black Bolt's twin brother? And what if, as an infant, he was exposed to the Mists, which granted him the same power as his twin?
Relationships: Blackagar Boltagon & Maximus Boltagon & Tony Stark, Medusalith Amaquelin/Blackagar Boltagon, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Power Prompts [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986601
Comments: 96
Kudos: 19





	1. Meeting the Family

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if I'm missing any tags or if you see a typo, I'm open to suggestions for possible future chapters

After New York and everyone brushing him off, Tony sought out his real family. He had never seen them and had no idea how the Grey Robes got to him when they tried to give him the throne. From that encounter, he knew that he was Prince Ahura Boltagon, firstborn son of King Agon and Queen Rynda, first of three. Since he couldn't use the Grey Robes' route, he found his own. Disguising his request as concern for people like Bruce Banner- the only Avenger who was willing to hear him out- he had JARVIS locate supers and monitor them. One man was of particular interest, a man with no eyes who could cross the planet in a second. Through careful monitoring, Tony discovered a pattern and caught the man when he came to pull a blond man from a car crash. "Hello?" The man was blind so switching to his text-to-talk app's default setting was counterproductive, the man needed to hear his 'voice' so that he could identify Tony.

"Who are you?" The no-eyed man went on the defensive.

"A fellow Inhuman here to arrange transport for you to a nation of people like us. Meet me," he set the rendezvous and left the man to pull the blond and take him wherever he took the others, some hidden village in some mountains.

At the meeting place, Tony quickly explained "We need to get airborne and you need to tell me your name so we can get where we need to be."

"My name's Gordon. What's yours?"

"Depends on who you ask. It's a long story I'd rather not get into right now. For now, what you need to know is that I can't talk, that I'm using a text-to-talk app."

"Is that part of your gift?" Gordon took the last steps to board the jet which then took off.

"Yes. A single word from me could level a mountain or a city, which is why I don't talk and neither does my brother, the king of the Inhuman nation we're going to visit. I need you to trust me, teleportation is the only way into the kingdom and when we get there, we're probably going to be arrested."

"Arrested why?"

"Because to them, I'm human and you're a threat. They don't know that there are Inhumans outside their borders, they won't see you as one of them."

"Okay."

Tony timed his approach to be at night and gave Gordon instructions on how far to jump in what direction, purposefully neglecting to mention where they were going and foolishly hoping he wouldn't recognize the destination as off-world. When they arrived, the Royal Guard caught and cuffed them, bringing them before the King and Queen immediately, mistaking their arrival for the start of an invasion. King Black Bolt scrutinized the human intruder, who smiled back at him with an almost identical face. Queen Medusa caught the similarities and saw how the human refused to speak and his companion plead ignorance while insisting the human couldn't talk. The two monarchs came to the same conclusion almost simultaneously, "Release the human's hands."

The guards hesitated but obeyed nonetheless and their captive pulled a strange device out of his pocket, fiddling with it until a voice spoke from the box "Hello, brother." In that instant, the guards looked between their prisoner and their king before hurrying to release the other captive and bowing to the lot of them. King Black Bolt barely had a chance to dismiss them before they left in a hurry. "Gordon, stand up." Both Inhumans stood at the same time. Ahura continued to fiddle, or rather type. "I would like to meet our full family before I begin explaining why I am here, lest I have to explain many times. To answer the obvious, most immediate question, Gordon is Inhuman. It seems our ancestors missed a few of their brethren and a few Kree Diviners, if I had to guess. I enlisted him to get here because nobody ever told me how to get to Attilan, I am lucky Mira told me about this place before the Genetic Council tried to give me the throne following our parents' deaths."

Medusa said "They tried to give you the throne?"

"When I first underwent Terrigenesis, they tried to kill me. I was not going to rule beside people like that, people who would likely go around me to do whatever they pleased. I had no interest in being a puppet king, yet I still became one in a more figurative sense but that is a story for later. It is due to the Genetic Council's attempt to place me on the throne that I know I have two brothers. I will explain everything I can but only to the full family. I don't even know your names."

"I'm Medusa and this is your brother, Black Bolt."

"Am I correct to assume you're married, making you my sister in law?"

"Yes."

Gordon told Tony "You never did tell me your name."

"Ahura, technically but people on Earth know me as Tony Stark."

"Ah," that explained enough.

Medusa had someone take them to guest quarters and send some clothes for them to change into. Tony and Black Bolt were nearly identical, only Tony's hair was a bit lighter, not that Gordon could see it but Medusa could and she asked her husband "How old is Ahura?"

Black Bolt smiled and signed, confirming they were twins. Ahura was born first and exposed to the Mists as an infant, the results of his Terrigenesis prompted their parents and the Genetic Council to formally forbid premature Terrigenesis. The family was all gathered for dinner that night, Ahura and Gordon joining them as guests. Seeing a seat open beside his brother and another at the end of the table, Ahura mentally sighed. He took Gordon's hand and placed it on the back of the far seat before taking his seat between his apparent brothers. Everyone instantly looked between the king and their guests, especially Ahura, before Karnak said "Welcome home, Ahura."

"Not staying." Ahura sat his phone beside his plate after typing the statement.

Medusa introduced her brother-in-law to the rest of their family and the family to Gordon. "You said you'd explain why you're here once we were all together."

"Recently, Earth was invaded by aliens through a wormhole. I went through the wormhole with a bomb and saw the army on the other side but no one on Earth listens when I tell them more are coming so I thought that I would come up here and try warning Attilan. I found Gordon while I was looking for super powered people to help fight in the coming war, it's mostly ironic that he happens to be Inhuman."

Almost as though he could see everyone turn to look at him, Gordon said "I did not know this place existed before today. I knew I was Inhuman, obviously," he gestured to his eyes "But I didn't know there was a whole kingdom of Inhumans."

Ahura suggested "Maybe you should try telling your version of Inhuman history and then we can compare it to ours. There are two sides to every story and the truth is usually in the middle." Gordon told the version he had been taught, Crystal shared the Attilan version and they agreed that the overlapping parts must be true along with the provable parts (Attilan is obviously an Inhuman nation on the moon) while the validity of the rest was unknowable.

The time spent discussing Inhuman origins gave Karnak time to contemplate what he wanted to ask Ahura "How did you carry a bomb through a wormhole?"

"Um, bit of a story actually. So, first off, the invasion happened in the Earth year 2012. Back in 2008, I was demonstrating some defensive technology for the military, a bit of cutting edge bomb protection and I was in a convoy on my way back from the demo when it was attacked. There was a bomb with the words Stane Tech on it, the company's leader worked for my foster father and when I took over the family company, I kicked him out because I knew he had manipulated Howard, I saw him do it when I was young and Stane overlooked me because I can't talk. Anyway, Stane supplied the attackers, terrorists, with weapons from the company he took over after I kicked him out of mine and offered them more weapons and money if they killed me. Luckily, my armor held up. I would've just destroyed the base but they had another prisoner, a doctor and I got my dad's company out of the weapons business to stop killing innocent people. He died anyway but when I had to find another way out, I created a weaponized suit of armor. After I got out, I started using the new armor to be a hero. I can fly in the suit, which is how I got a flying nuke- the most dangerous weapon that humans have ever made- through a wormhole. On the other side, I saw the vast void of space practically filled with aliens just like the ones who were invading. Then I fell back to Earth, the wormhole was closing as I fell so I just barely made it through. The team I was fighting alongside has decided that we won and I'm disputing that simply to get attention. I'm not going to keep wasting my proverbial breath trying to convince them. Instead, I am going to prepare and let them be caught off guard when they see I'm right. Part of preparing for war is getting allies ready," Ahura looked at Black Bolt after typing "That's what I'm hoping Attilan will be."

Crystal summarized "You nearly died four years ago, built a super suit, became a super hero and within the past year, you fought an alien invasion that you're sure is just the beginning but none of the humans want to believe you."

"Basically. Part of the problem is that my team was put together by an agency called SHIELD and they say that the threat has been neutralized. The people who organized the response are saying the aliens could not overcome our preparations but I know that the nuke was aimed at the battlefield not the wormhole, millions of people would have died if their response was successful. Sometimes people not listening to me works to my advantage, Stane ignoring me led me to discover his treachery, but most of the time, it's just annoying. Like I said, they don't want to believe me, their loss but I won't let the whole world pay the price." Ahura had a determined look on his face, even after he finished typing and returned some of his attention to his meal.

Black Bolt pointed to the phone and his brother nodded, consenting to him trying the app out. "You are sure?" Ahura nodded. "Why would they come back?"

Ahura took his phone back "No war ends in a single battle. Whatever they wanted, they didn't get it. The nuke I sent through, it would've decimated the battlefield almost as well as me saying the word nuke but against what I saw, it's nothing. Unless all they were after was the partial destruction of a part of a single Earth city, they didn't get what they wanted. Whatever their reason for invading, it's still valid. They'll be coming, if not for whatever they were after the first time then for revenge. One of my team is an alien that primitive humans mistook him for a pagan God and apparently the universe still believes people on Earth think that way, they still look down on our planet which is both an advantage and disadvantage. It's an advantage because they don't see Earth as worth visiting, much less conquering but it's a disadvantage because that leaves us all alone when aliens do come to invade. I want to prepare for the coming invasion but the people of Earth are happy to think the invasion is over."

Medusa asked "What all do you know about Attilan?"

"Everything Crystal just told me, I know it's a kingdom that my birth parents once ruled. When I was almost 17, members of the Genetic Council came to offer me the throne, which is how I found out I have two younger brothers. I refused because one of the things the woman who brought me to Earth told me about Attilan was that our coming to Earth had been a compromise. She told me that when I was an infant, I was exposed to something called Terrigen Mists and underwent a process called Terrigenesis. She told me that usually, people undergo Terrigenesis as adolescents because that's the age when they're old enough to understand but young enough to adapt. I underwent the process as an infant with the belief being that I would never know any different and that was a good thing because I wouldn't need to adapt. After my Terrigenesis, my cries were very destructive and the Genetic Council basically advised my parents to have me killed for the good of Attilan. Exiling me to Earth was a compromise only attainable because Mira could get me to stop crying and see when I was about to cry to preemptively stop me. My entire childhood, Mira drilled mutism into me, told me never to speak. It wasn't until I was almost 14 that she told me why. Then three years later, I get a visit from the Genetic Council, they want me to return to Attilan, a place I was exiled from to avoid execution as a baby, and claim the throne as is apparently my birthright being first born. I barely managed to keep my temper enough to type a polite refusal but talking never occurred to me. Mira only spoke of people other than Howard and Maria Stark being my parents once, when she told me about Attilan and what I am. I really don't know enough about the kingdom to rule even if I had wanted to all those years ago."

Medusa shared a look with Black Bolt before telling Ahura "You are the firstborn by less than an hour." She had discussed Black Bolt's long lost twin before dinner, Medusa getting as many details as her husband could offer for the brother he never met.

"So Black Bolt and I are twins?" Ahura looked as confused as most of them felt "Why was I only exposed as an infant? Did they think time would change the results?"

Triton spoke up "You're not the only one who was exposed as an infant, I was and my results similarly prompted hesitation when it came time for my brother to undergo Terrigenesis."

"I meant, why not expose both twins to the same Mists?"

"Everyone undergoes the process individually for safety reasons," answered Gorgon. "I guess your results are the reason they locked down the age for Terrigenesis, limiting it to adolescents."

"I got that, I mean I figured as much but we're twins, why go one at a time?"

"They probably wanted a chance to focus on your results before getting distracted by your brother's," answered Gordon.

"Makes sense, I guess. I'd ask why neither the Council or Mira told me I was a twin but the first one's obvious and the second one's a moot point. I haven't seen her since I was 14."

Gordon asked "Care to explain the first one?"

"The Genetic Council told me I have two younger brothers, they wanted me to claim the throne as the eldest so telling me one of those brothers is my twin would be counter productive to getting me to go with them. Unfortunately for them, I already knew that they tried to have me executed as an infant so I wasn't about to play their game." Ahura smiled "I do find it ironic that we wound up with the same power anyway." He turned to his youngest brother and asked "What's your power?"

"I don't have one, Terrigenesis rendered me human."

"I literally just told you that the Genetic Council tried to have me killed, I'm assuming they tried to do something to Black Bolt since he got the same power anyway and you're still gonna trust their test results. Come on, nothing strange has happened in all the years since you underwent Terrigenesis." Ahura frowned "What did they try to do to Black Bolt? I'm guessing they did more than try to place me on the throne when he was raised to rule."

"They tried to get our parents to sign off on brain surgery."

"So our power originates in our brains, good to know. Any strange occurrences that could be explained by mental powers? Maybe people obeying you without question when they wouldn't normally, or you being able to read emotions, detect people's approach when they're trying to be sneaky? Anything?"

Black Bolt was signing behind his twin and Medusa translated "Tried?"

"Oh, so you're a master manipulator anyway," concluded Ahura. "So am I and I don't have the excuse of possible psychic power." Looking between his brothers, he asked "What am I missing?"

"Unlike you, Black Bolt has said a word since his Terrigenesis, he asked our parents why when it looked like they were going to give into the Council. One word and we had parents no more."

"How long did it take the Council after that to approach me?"

"A couple years."

Ahura mentally sighed and physically mimed the expression, "The Council told you that you're human, tried to tell our parents that Black Bolt should have his power surgically removed after telling them that it would be in the kingdom's best interest to have me killed lest I accidentally speak or cry a little too loud. Put that together and it looks to me like the Council wants the monarchy to serve them not the other way around." Looking around, he rolled his eyes "They tried to render all of us ineligible. Black Bolt messing up might have just saved both of your lives because they probably thought you'd be easier to manipulate, that they got themselves a puppet king, all the while knowing full well our parents would never let harm come to their children. I was sent to Earth to put me out of their reach when they became very insistent that I was too dangerous to live. Are you really going to keep playing into their hand?"

"Playing into their hand?"

"You're doing exactly what they want you to. The Council had to know that our parents wouldn't allow the surgery, no matter how much they insisted on it, just like they didn't allow their supposedly human son to suffer for a fluke of Terrigenesis or their eldest to be killed when there was no logical way that I could gain control before inflicting irreparable damage to the kingdom, possibly destroying it. You think they actually believe our parents signed off on the surgery after what they did to protect you and me? They know what you did but it worked out to their advantage so they let you get away with it." Ahura gave his brothers each a look. "From my perspective, it looks like they decided my death no longer served Attilan when it became apparent that Black Bolt would not be the puppet king they hoped for. Now, do me a favor." Ahura set his phone to accept new words, "Can you review everyone's names and add them to my phone's dictionary?" Maximus took his phone and whispered the names into it, typing them afterwards as prompted. When he was done, he handed it back, "I can say Gordon because it was one of the many names a friend of mine read into the original text-to-talk device, we just happened to skip names we thought I was unlikely to encounter and Karnak wasn't even on the list we were using."

"Back to what you were saying before," Crystal prompted "Do you really believe all of that?"

"About the Council? Yeah, kinda reminds me of Stane. He did his best to ignore me until my usefulness became apparent then he tried to nurture a relationship that would have made me view him as a father figure if he hadn't ignored me so well that I saw him manipulate Howard. I learned a lot from him, mostly how to get people to mistake my idea for their own to get what I want but I've decided not to bother with that when it comes to SHIELD." They had a very informative dinner and Maximus was sent back to Earth with Ahura and Gordon to help his oldest brother with preparations. Nobody would miss the prince, unfortunately, and Ahura would have a better chance of uncovering the truth of his brother's Terrigenesis than anyone else in the family. Overall, the meeting went well.


	2. Thanos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Infinity War is upon us

Mind control turned out to be Maximus' gift as he was able to get humans to do his bidding without recognizing him as Tony Stark's cousin Max Bolton, which was their cover story. JARVIS eventually got Sir to tell him the truth, after Maximus used his communicator to secure permission. Bruce Banner was the only Avenger that Tony tolerated in his home, the man had tentatively believed him and Tony rewarded his faith by nailing Ross to the freaking wall and getting a message from Bruce to Betty. The Inhumans on Earth used Maximus as liaison with their brethren on the moon and Tony arranged for a private island where they could live in peace and isolation on Earth with no threat from the local government on the condition Lai Shi becomes a colony of Attilan, unifying the Inhuman race. Once things began to settle, Tony moved onto the big fish: SHIELD. He put JARVIS on taking them down, acquiring permission to white hat hack them then sharing his findings under the guise of Tony Stark doing all that work. Tony diverted SI resources to keep the people on the Index from being weaponized the way Ross tried to weaponize the Hulk. Soon enough, the world knew Tony had saved them from HYDRA, which had infiltrated the infrastructure of the world starting with SHIELD. When he warned of another invasion after SHIELDRA's fall, people listened and more or less followed his plans.

Thor came back in 2018 after six years without contact. He came back ranting about Thanos the Mad Titan and how he was coming, going so far as to demand to see the Son of Stark. Tony paid him a visit along with his cousin Max and they managed to get to the truth beneath the apparent crazy. Max shared their findings with the UN while Tony finalized preparations "An alien tyrant known as Thanos the Mad Titan is after six powerful alien artifacts known as the Infinity Stones. The Tesseract and Loki's scepter each contained one, the Tesseract is very likely in enemy hands and the Stone from Loki's scepter is currently housed in Vision's forehead. Thanos will come for us, regardless of what we do now. I propose we put the battle on our terms and send Vision somewhere as far away from civilization as possible, perhaps the middle of a desert. Only approved combatants will be allowed into this chosen battlefield, soldiers from the allied militaries should be posted around the site to hold the perimeter and nothing more. They should not be any closer to the fighting than any other unenhanced person." After some deliberation, the UN agreed and had a neutral cartographer determine where the middle of nowhere was geographically. Tony sent Vision ahead with most of the new Avengers, who had been rebranded as the Defenders because they set out to defend people not avenge their deaths. Max went back to Attilan to let them know where the fight would be and share with his family the results of Tony's tests.

While they were doing all of that, Tony visited a residence in Greenwich Village. He cut to the chase and asked after the Infinity Stone they kept, sharing Thor's warning and the UN's plan. Stephen Strange consulted a few of his fellow sorcerers before opening a portal to join Vision in the desert to wait. There was a part of the plan that Max and Tony failed to share with any of their allies. Once Thanos arrived, they planned to clear the battlefield, that much was known but the official plan was to concentrate forces around the keepers of the Infinity Stones on their side. The actual plan was for the Boltagon twins to talk to each other from opposite ends of the battlefield to properly clear it and hopefully harm Thanos enough for their allies to take him down.

The plan worked, more or less, and the Stones were secured in separate containers pending the Galactic Council and United Nations deciding what to do with them to avoid another Thanos. After the last remnants of Thanos' forces (mostly ships and other debris and the corpse of the tyrant himself) was cleared, the soldiers who kept the perimeter were invited to join the celebratory party which was held on the battlefield to accommodate the sheer number of people who fought for them. Tony joined his family after checking in on all the teams who fought with them. He had a few ideas about what their alien allies should not leave the planet without trying and he recruited a few soldiers to see to it that they got the full Terran experience. Gordon and Quake's Secret Warriors team was clustered around the Inhuman Royal Family, Gordon helped the locals expose their monarchs to the good side of humanity, partly through food but also music and stuff. There were military trucks and jets and all sorts of vehicles parked throughout the desert space. Some of the teams used their transport to blast out some tunes, it was a party after all. Bruce carefully made his way through the crowd to find Tony with the Inhumans, "Hey."

Tony pulled out his phone and typed "Hi, Bruce."

"Max isn't your cousin, is he?"

"He's my little brother. The Starks adopted after four failed pregnancies, mom- I mean Maria took the timing of her running into a woman struggling to care for an infant soon after she lost the last kid as a sign from God. Maria and Howard didn't know, that I wasn't that woman's kid or that I was Inhuman."

"Oh."

"That's not what you came here to ask."

"How did you do that- what was that?"

"My twin brother and I share the same power. We can level cities with a single word. What you saw was us talking for the first time." Tony smirked "Those were actually my first words, ever."

"Wow, uh-"

"Still not what you set out to say."

"I guess not."

"Say what you wanna say, I won't get offended."

"I'm sure you won't. I'm just not sure how to phrase it."

"Not so different after all?" suggested Tony.

"Yeah. I guess we're not."

"Tony's not my real name, neither is Anthony. Anthony Edward Stark is what Maria and Howard planned to name the last kid they lost, again Mira had miraculous timing. My real name is Ahura Boltagon, Max Bolton is short for Maximus Boltagon and my twin brother is Blackagar Boltagon but everyone calls him Black Bolt or King Black Bolt, technically." He looked at his brother, who was shaking his head and interpreted his signs "He says you don't have to use his title."

"Thanks, I think." Then the words all sunk in "You're a prince."

"I was, I guess I am but Maximus is heir and I support that." Tony- Ahura gave his brother a questioning look and his twin nodded, confirming Maximus was heir. Ahura turned back to Bruce "You okay- Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just a little in shock."

"Yeah, I was too when I first found out. For most of my childhood, I was just told not to talk or it was assumed I couldn't talk, I didn't know why. It's a lot to take in but it doesn't change who I am. I still can't use a phone like a normal human being." Bruce broke out laughing at that, the mounting tension suddenly broken by a typical Tony joke. Things would be alright, decided the mute inventor, even though he was now formally forbidden from having kids. He had already planned to make Harley Keener or Peter Parker his heir, he wasn't sure which yet so it was no big loss.


	3. Spider-Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter meets the House of Agon, which he's sort of a part of as Tony's pseudo-son, maybe sorta.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Tony's Inhuman nanny, Mira is pronounced Me-ra while Myrra is pronounced My-ra.

Peter made a habit of not speaking while in Stark Tower, since his internship with Tony Stark was built on ASL lessons. He didn't understand why Mr. Stark was smirking at him when he signed his normal greeting then he nearly jumped a foot in the air when Mr. Stark's _voice_ spoke up behind him "Hi." Truth be told, he jumped onto the ceiling, which is more than a foot in the air.

Looking between them, he broke his personal no talking rule to ask "Did you clone yourself?"

Being a lifelong mute, Mr. Stark had a strange way of looking like he wanted to laugh. He gestured vaguely to the ceiling and JARVIS answered Peter "The man you were attempting to communicate with is Sir's twin brother, King Black Bolt of the Inhuman nation known as Attilan. Sir was adopted as an infant after undergoing the Inhuman rite of passage known as Terrigenesis resulted in him gaining an incredibly destructive voice and fearing for the kingdom, he was sent to live elsewhere. King Black Bolt underwent the same rite as an adolescent and gained the same power but as an adolescent, he was better able to gain conscious control over his power."

"Oh," Peter dropped down "Do you mind if we skip today's ASL lesson, Mr. Stark?"

"Not at all," signed the man before pulling out his digital translator, "Ask away."

"Okay. What's your birth name? Where's Attilan? Why did they send you away for being destructive? Were they hoping you'd destroy other people's countries?"

"Slow down. In order, Ahura Boltagon, Black Bolt is actually short for Blackagar Boltagon. Attilan is, as far as you're concerned, located on an island I bought to protect the people's secret. My parents had me sent away because the Council that ruled alongside them wanted to have me killed for the good of the kingdom. They were hoping I'd live, they sent me with the one person who could see when I was about to cry and soothe me so I doubt they intended for me to destroy another country. I spoke for the first time when Black Bolt and I destroyed Thanos' army and before you ask, no I'm not gonna tell you what we said. K?" Out of habit, Peter shook his fist and nodded at the same time. "Take a seat at the bar, I'll introduce you to the rest of the family as they come."

Maximus was next with Daisy Johnson and Gordon, he introduced himself to Peter before dropping a file on the bar "I found Myrra's contract with your fosters, which should prove you didn't replace yourself." Tony tilted his head in question "Myrra is Mira's real name like how Ahura is yours." Tony nodded, shaking his fist where most of the room couldn't see.

Unfortunately Black Bolt had come over to check out the contract and caught it. He pulled out the text-to-talk handheld Tony gave him to ask "Is Peter your son?" Tony shook his head. "Are you sure?"

"I am." Tony typed on his phone "I have no children, brother. Anytime the thought even crossed my mind, I remembered what Mira said about why I was sent away. I was the Crown Prince and the Council still wanted to kill me, I was not going to risk children under those circumstances. Peter has a friend who is deaf, I've been teaching him ASL for two years now, I've known him for four. He learned this," Tony held his phone in one and used his free hand to sign yes "Means this," Tony nodded. "It's a quirk, I can't say it's a common one but I can't imagine it's incredibly rare. Peter met his friend in elementary school, meaning he was just learning to form proper sentences when he decided to try to learn American Sign Language." His brother had the decency to look properly chastised. "Since I can't have kids, I need to pick someone to inherit Stark Industries. Peter's one of the teens I'm considering."

"Really, Mr. Stark?"

"Yes but I am sure my Board of Directors will have something to say about it so I need to be sure. Right now, I'm not sure you can handle the Board, you're too nice."

"Oh."

"This is why I didn't want to tell you until I had made my choice but Black Bolt spilled the beans on me not having kids."

As that fact sunk in, Peter turned to Black Bolt "If you two can't have kids, how does the," he struggled to find the word.

"Line of succession," suggested Tony.

"Yeah, how does that work?"

Tony answered "We have a mutual younger brother and Queen Medusa has a younger sister."

Peter looked a bit bashful as he glanced at Maximus before a question occurred to him "Don't all Inhumans have powers? I mean, you all undergo Terrigenesis, right?"

Tony cut him off "Maximus has psychic powers but he hasn't had much practice with them because they were dormant for most of his life."

"Oh, okay."

Daisy offered "I have vibrokinesis and Gordon's a teleporter." That had the intended effect as Peter launched into a chat with Gordon about teleporting while blind.

Maximus moved around the bar to stand with his eldest brother. Conversations with the twins were often had in looks and very literal or exaggerated gestures, even though they both knew one form of sign. Medusa arrived with Karnak and Gorgon via Lockjaw, causing Peter to abandon his conversation and fuss over the dog. Happy picked up Crystal and Triton from the pier, making them the last people to arrive. Peter introduced himself to the last two groups, Crystal screwed with him a little by saying "You mean Ahura."

"Yes but I know him as Mr. Stark."

Tony added via his text-to-talk app "Call me Tony. Only these guys call me Ahura, even Quake and Gordon call me Tony." Daisy slapped a hand over Gordon's mouth before he could make a smart remark.

Peter asked Black Bolt, "Did you ask Mr. Stark to make your handheld sound like his app?"

Medusa said "Ahura gave Black Bolt his old interpreter, which the app is based off of."

"Right." Black Bolt signed to his wife a bit and the hostility all but visibly drained from her. Then, while Peter's back was turned as he went back to fussing over Lockjaw, Tony chucked a shot glass at him. Without looking, Peter jumped into the air then caught the glass midflip and landed in a crouch next to Lockjaw, scanning the room for threats before realizing what had been aimed at his head "Not cool!"

Crystal asked "Are you Inhuman?"

"No. I'm, it's complicated." Tony signed the letter J and a hologram appeared over the kid.

"You're Spider-Man?"

"Yeah," Peter looked down "That is so cool, Mr. Stark. How'd you-" The hologram went away and Tony signed the letter J again. "Right, JARVIS is fluent in ASL, American Sign Language, although I guess what Black Bolt uses could be considered Attilan Sign Language."

"Yeah, I guess," agreed Crystal, coming over, pulling Peter to stand at full height and taking the shot glass then marching him over to the bar where everyone was clustered.

"What are you-?" All of Tony's expressions were a little off unless he was doing them for show as he often did for the press. He looked amused as Crystal marched Peter over "What's going on?" Then he shrugged very dramatically and Peter started signing, prompting him to sign back and before anyone knew it the two were silently arguing very heatedly until Peter threw his hands up. The teen pulled something out his pocket and secured it to his wrist, using it to fire a line of webbing at the fridge and very carefully yank it open then cutting the line and using a new one to grab a Gatorade. Tony glared lightly at him, where he was slightly slumped over the counter, looking supremely unimpressed with the world in general, as the older man cleaned off the webbing and grabbed alcoholic drinks for his adult family. He produced a bowl from under the counter and put it on Peter's head then pointed at the sink. Even though it wasn't proper sign and that'd usually annoy Peter who had seen his deaf friend be taunted by people mockingly signing at him, the teen obediently filled the bowl with water and brought it over to the dog. Tony put a slab of meat on a plate and gave it to Crystal with a questioning look at the oven. She took the raw meat over to her dog, who was almost done thanking Peter for the water. A sharp look from the princess had Peter apologizing for his dramatics to Tony, who looked deeply amused alongside the rest of his family, who all looked like they were trying not to laugh if only to be polite. Tony finally had mercy on the confused teen and used the camera on his phone to show the teen his reflection. Lockjaw's love was Tony's revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't think of an actual argument they could be having and since they're the only ones in the room who know American Sign, I didn't need to. In this story, Ned Leeds is deaf. In seventh grade, Peter and Ned attended an assembly wherein Peter stopped Tony from switching to his interpreter for questions after signing his way through his speech because Ned didn't get to enjoy a lot of assemblies due to his condition and having a speaker use sign had him excited. Tony paired the two up for the Stark Scholarship to Midtown that day and invested in better accommodations throughout the American school system, starting with Midtown and its feeder schools. Almost every day after school starting on his first day of freshman year at Midtown, Peter went to Stark Tower for his internship and to do his homework. After Uncle Ben dies, Aunt May falls back on that internship a bit, trusting Tony to watch Peter when she had to take on extra shifts. Peter's basically fluent in ASL now but his signs are still a bit quirky since he did start learning the basics when he was in elementary. Name-signs, I don't know if Tony's name sign would be widely known or not (or how name signs work with last names, like the Stark in Stark Scholarship) so I decided not to try to write his first meeting with Peter.


	4. The Avengers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened when the Avengers tried to bully Tony after SHIELD fell?
> 
> Enjoy some Boltagon brothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Krafter2014 on Chapter 2 of this fic: I would love a confrontation scene between Tony and Fury/the Avengers, please.

Maximus adjusted to life on Earth well. When it was just him, Tony and JARVIS and they saw the news mention his name, he'd laugh at the irony. First Blackagar becomes Black Bolt and now Maximus is Max Bolton. Tony had pointed it out to him and Maximus had fun contrasting the passionate Ahura he had been at dinner with the way Tony Stark presented himself, jumping between topics even though he had to take the time to spell out what he wanted to say. Maximus was actually the first member of the family to meet Peter Parker but Peter met Max and the difference between brother and cousin became clear with the distance Tony emphasized when signing to Peter, who dutifully translated (including the word translate). Max drifted away after that to continue his work and suddenly realized how much he had always distanced himself. He was the third born son of King Agon and Queen Rynda, sure but he had always been treated and viewed as second born. Ahura was practically a family secret, although knowing the Council tried to have him executed put that into perspective.

Peter was in school when a man by the name of Steve Rogers (Captain America, the man who ordered the portal closed while his brother was still on the other side) decided to come in and make demands of Tony. Maximus was not having any of it, or the way Steve's followers tore into his brother as though they were owed everything Steve was demanding. Maximus spoke up "That's quite enough. Tony has to use his hands to type or to sign, not that any of you seem to understand a word of ASL. The rest of you have the luxury of speech, your hands should stay at your sides when you speak. Now, you should leave. My cousin clearly asked you to several times and therefore you are currently trespassing. Keep it up and I'll call the police. Tony told me what you," he looked Natasha Romanoff in the eye "Did to Hammer Security during the Expo. Only his concern for his own employees has kept him from having SI security summoned. I, however, am not mute, I can and will call 9-1-1 if you do not leave now." Steve turned on him. Maximus discovered he could control minds when he repeated his order "Leave," and the man turned to obey. His followers were not so obedient, prompting Maximus to add "And take your cohorts with you." Steve grabbed and dragged them away.

The second time they forced a confrontation was at a party. Steve Rogers used his Captain America reputation and Natasha Romanoff used her skills at seduction to secure an invitation, Steve brought his friend Sam Wilson along. Although Maximus would grant that Sam seemed the most reasonable of the trio, he was pretty sure they just weren't wasting an invitation on Clint Barton since the man was adept at sneaking through air vents. Tony was introducing Max around to some scientists in attendance, proud of his cousin for following in his footsteps and becoming an inventor. Their story was Tony wanted to cultivate his cousin's skills and keep him out of the weapons game, Maximus was purported to be college age to give them enough of an age gap to divert attention from the physical similarities that marked them as brothers. Natasha asked "Care to dance?"

Maximus said "I'm not very good." Tony smirked "And I was told to stay close to my cousin tonight since nobody here knows me." Natasha covered her displeasure well, Max just politely refused for both of them. Tony mockingly waved goodbye as Natasha went elsewhere. Max shot him a look and his cousin straightened up but couldn't keep the smile off his face until Max mimicked him and he realized it was his natural smile. Tony's expressions always looked a bit off unless he was faking them, which was funny because certain facial expressions were supposed to be universal.

Steve made his approach more subtly, getting someone else to re-introduce them. "What were you doing at the Tower the other day? I couldn't read Tony's signs because every time he raised his hands, you slapped them away."

"You must be mistaken," said the man who came over with them, not Sam, their introducer.

"How many people look like him and would make a point to see my cousin in his home?" Max raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Thankfully, Tony has his AI who warned Steve and his friends to leave but even then, it took prodding." Recognizing the introducer was foreign, he added "If he would do that to his supposed friend, keeping him from talking and refusing to leave when asked, what do you suppose he would do if he felt entitled to something outside the US? What are borders but boundaries drawn by people long dead? I'm sorry sir but I think it would be best if we put some distance between this man and my cousin. Can you imagine dealing with someone who feels like they are owed everything you have and not being able to talk back as they make endless demands?"

Max steered Tony away, getting them out into a hallway before his brother went into a full on panic attack, "I'm sorry, I pushed too hard." Max pulled out his phone, one of Tony's gifts and looked up how to help someone out of a panic attack. "Breathe with me, Tony." Following the advice on his phone and keeping it in plain view to avoid surprises, he talked his brother through breathing and kept up a steady flow of encouragement. Tony took the phone once he calmed down and read the advice, raising an eyebrow at his brother. "I didn't know what to do so I looked it up." Tony returned the phone and signed his thanks, Max signed the reciprocal phrase. "JARVIS showed me some tutorials to clean up my signs."

Tony nodded then signed a more complicated phrase "Let's get out of here." When he moved to leave, Max understood and he caught Sam Wilson staring from the doorway to the ballroom, shaking his head at the man to indicate he should not move towards them.

Happy was waiting to pick them up and on the way back to the Tower, he stopped at a drive thru to get them each a cheeseburger meal. "You're not vegan or lactose intolerant or anything, are you Max?"

"No." Happy passed the bag back after taking his own food, three standard cheeseburger meals with chocolate shakes instead of soft drinks. Tony's eyes lit up at the offering, he showed Max the right way to eat fries, dipping them in a shake. Not long after the party, Tony acted with a heavy heart and stopped the Avengers from harming anyone else by sending their files through to the authorities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/health-topics/hw53602 is where I got my information on talking someone down from a panic attack


	5. Agility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Tony is Tony and Peter has enhanced agility." Bruce realized a moment later that he was speaking to the one group of people who didn't consider his boy- best- boy, his friend Tony Stark "I mean, Ahura is Ahura and Peter has enhanced agility."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wise Black Bolt, middle children get a bad wrap (does that wrap apply to kids who are the middle by less than an hour? Idk). I think you'll like this if you liked the last two chapters, otherwise why are you reading this fic

Shortly after Peter got his powers, Tony went to work on creating the most badass obstacle course for the Spiderling to train on. Then, as he did with most things, he tested it himself. Thankfully, he had Vision spot him so he didn't seriously hurt himself when he fell but his pride was wounded enough that he spent way more time mastering the course than its intended user. Peter didn't even see it until Tony had run it at least a hundred times. Ultimately, he got it and could run it as well as Underoos. Then they started racing on the course.

One day, Tony double booked himself with his pseudo-son and the rest of his family. Bruce was in the observation box trying to be the voice of reason to keep them from engaging in stunt contests that nobody won. JARVIS directed the Inhuman Royal Family to the box where they saw what looked like Peter and Tony sparring on a balance beam. "Is this normal?" asked Crystal.

"Could you be more specific?"

"Is this how they normally train?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Tony made the obstacle course for Peter then when it was done, he basically hijacked it testing it and now they've both mastered it and apparently racing each other through the course is boring so here we are."

"What are they doing?" asked Medusa.

"Stunts." That's when the royals noticed that neither were landing hits or really trying to, they were just doing very dangerous and showy flips.

"What if one of them falls?"

"We have web-shooters in the ceiling to catch them but I've never seen either of them fall."

"Really?"

"Yeah, well Peter has enhanced agility and Tony is Tony." A moment later, Bruce realized he was talking to the one group of people who didn't consider his best- boy- best, his friend Tony Stark "I mean, Ahura is Ahura and Peter has enhanced agility. Plus one of them designed the thing and the other can stick to almost anything." Black Bolt confirmed that last part by telling Medusa how Peter jumped onto the ceiling when they first met, his wife shared the story and they all had a little laugh.

"Do you know who the other teen Tony is looking at to inherit SI is?" asked Maximus.

Bruce made sure the microphone was off "Harley Keener, kid lives in Tennessee. He helped Tony during the Mandarin incident, which you can read about if you haven't already or ask Tony about if you have five hours, he tends to go off on tangents when he talks about it. Anyway, Tony was left with a dead suit of armor, no phone, no interpreter and no money in the middle of rural Tennessee. He was actually declared dead because his house had been blown up. Harley, who didn't know a single sign in ASL, helped him out. Kid apparently took to coding almost like a fish to water and he was brave, Tony gave him one of the few weapons in the armor that still worked to deal with bullies because Tony can be impractical like that and the kid used it to defend Tony against an Extremis soldier. People injected with Extremis breathe fire, heal fast, they're super strong and if they don't get regular injections of a stabilizing agent, they explode. Tony looks like he's outmatched, any kid with half a lick of sense would run away from the monster but this kid gets in the line of fire for Tony. They're both brave, they're both smart and they both get Tony, even when he's being purposefully hard to understand- he does that to screw with people sometimes." Bruce suddenly turned on the mic and said "Keep it limited to the balance beam," then turned it off without looking. "It really is a pattern for them."

"You must understand him pretty well if you can predict that," said Crystal.

"I guess." Truth was Bruce wished he understood Tony just a little bit more, he really wanted to know where they stood but he couldn't ask him outright. Black Bolt muted his interpreter before typing a message to the good doctor and showing him, "Thanks." The king nodded then turned his attention to Tony, who was pretending to almost fall just to get Peter worked up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who likes Rage Against the Machine as this fic's main pairing?


	6. End of the Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Rogues cross the line for the final time

Everyone was happy as they rode the elevator up to the common room following Tony and Peter's accidental demo of their skills. Half of the family kept teasing Bruce and Tony wondered if there was something there for him, if they could really be something together. The happy mood instantly died when they arrived to find Pepper and Happy tied up with Rogers standing in the middle of the room, somehow still full of self-righteousness. Romanoff was a bit further back while Wanda was standing menacingly over their captives. Tony would bet his bottom dollar the rest of their crew were there because of Wanda: Pietro had made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her, Clint had retired to his family, Lang was reformed and Wilson was just too still, not even trying to talk Steve down, like an empty shell. When he saw them threatening his friends, Tony saw red. He stomped up to Steve and attacked, throwing the iconic shield at Wanda to keep her out of the fight while Peter hurried to cut Pepper and Happy free. Maximus moved to the bar while Bruce just looked pissed, taking up Steve's abandoned position in the middle of the room, everyone keeping their distance. When Natasha moved to grab Peter, Pietro knocked her into a wall, "What is going on?"

Peter guessed "Wanda mind controlled you," before he picked up on Tony still beating Steve who wasn't fighting back by the sounds of it "Tony, stop!" Hearing Peter call him that gave the inventor enough pause to realize he had beaten Steve a little more than half to death. He left the man to bleed a bit, noting the Rogues he guessed had been mind controlled were sitting in a cluster by Romanoff's unconscious body, pointedly ignoring Wanda.

After JARVIS had been reactivated, the security footage sent to the authorities and the Rogues rounded up, Crystal helped Peter replace the window Tony broke when he was attacking Rogers while the rest of the family had a talk with Happy and Pepper. Bruce was elsewhere, meditating or doing something else to calm down. Maximus knew his way around Tony's bar and poured drinks for everyone, his oldest brother having fled the room as soon as the Rogues were gone. "Does he have a Quiet Room?"

Peter came in just as that question was being asked "Tony doesn't need it." Before anyone could correct him (Peter hadn't seen Tony's power in action), he explained "Tony said his first words when you guys were fighting Thanos. I'm guessing by the name," he looked at Black Bolt "Your Quiet Room is a place where you can be alone and nobody will get hurt if you make a sound but that, talking, making a sound does not come naturally to Tony. He's been silent for most of his life, that's his natural state." Something occurred to Peter, "Is that why you and Tony won't tell anyone what he said? Was he not able to form words properly?"

Black Bolt gave him a disbelieving look as he shook his head. In response, Peter held up two fingers and rested them on his thumb, repeating the gesture. Medusa asked "Is that American Sign for 'no'?"

"Yes it is. American Sign and English Sign are not the same thing. English Sign can be the sign language of any English speaking country or it can be PSE, I forget what the acronym stands for. Mr. Stark taught me ASL because that's what my friend Ned uses and he started teaching me so I could talk to Ned better."

"Mr. Parker is considered fully fluent in American Sign Language after two years of study," intoned JARVIS, "He is currently working on the more common Pidgin Sign Language. Sir is fluent in over a dozen variants of sign language, although he tends to use a handheld device in place of sign."

"Tony is fluent in over a dozen languages?" said Pepper, surprised. At the looks she was given, Pepper explained "Outside lessons with Peter, I've never seen him use sign."

"Sir's handhelds are often preferred by many."

Peter said "In business, doesn't it make more sense to use the handheld? He programmed it to give him a voice. A living interpreter would serve to emphasize his disability more or am I totally off on this?"

"You're right and Stane probably made him feel that way. God," Pepper turned to Happy "I think Rhodey's the only one of us who can understand Tony's signs and even then Tony doesn't use them."

"Colonel Rhodes knows sign language?"

"He took it in college as an elective, I think. He said that he figured it'd be an easy A because Tony could tutor him."

Peter asked "Are you gonna treat him differently now?"

Pepper realized that was exactly what she was thinking of doing and that Tony would hate it, "No. It's just weird realizing that Tony knows so many languages and doesn't use them."

"Yeah. To be fair, Mr. Stark probably learned them out of boredom or just because he wanted to be multi-lingual. I doubt he learned over a dozen languages because he thought he'd need them."

"You're right."

When Tony came back, it was with pizza and Bruce, who told the gathered friends "I guess it's a movie night." That earned smiles and laughs all around before they settled in to continue Tony's list of must-see movies for his family.


	7. Howard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhodey talks to Tony's real family about his adoptive family, namely Howard

Max smiled when he saw Rhodey "Impersonating your best friend?"

"You understand his signs and I'll bet he still won't talk to you about Howard."

"Never came up." Maximus asked "Isn't the man long dead?"

"Yeah, so are your parents. Are you gonna tell me that they didn't have a long term effect on you?"

"No." The Royal Family took seats around the table, much as Rhodey wanted to drink, he figured it'd be best if there wasn't alcohol on hand for this.

"I know a little sign, I'm not nearly as fluent as you or Peter but I know enough for Tony to sometimes not need his interpreter. When Howard saw Tony signing, it pissed him off. He was of the belief that Tony didn't talk by choice and he did not support that choice. Of course, neither of us knew back then the reason he made that choice. My clearest memory of Howard Stark is him yelling at Tony to talk like a normal person. From how Tony acted, that was normal. Based on Maria's reaction, my presence was the only reason they were able to get him to stop yelling at his disabled son for being disabled. Way I figure it, Maria was probably resigned to what Howard was saying. Throw in Obadiah Stane and Edwin Jarvis, people either want Tony to get over himself, are resigned to him screwing up his life because he can talk, or just simply don't care. That's what he grew up with, I'm amazed he mastered sign with so many people basically telling him it was a waste of time because nobody was going to accommodate him. I never met Mira but I imagine she was the exception since she was the one telling him not to talk. Every time Howard caught Tony signing, even if he was signing to me, it set him off and I really got the feeling that if I wasn't there, he wouldn't stop yelling abuse at Tony but of course, Tony doesn't see that as abuse. My parents sort of stole Tony away for school holidays after I told them about how his family treated his disability. He looked like he couldn't believe my parents were so nice, that his signs were acceptable as long as he was patient with their interpretations. That shouldn't have amazed him but it did, I think he mimics Howard when he gives presentations because he thinks anything less is bad or something. I don't know, Maximus knowing his signs might minimize the damage his adoptives did around you but,"

"Thank you," Medusa cut him off. Her hair was the clearest indicator of how much hearing about Howard pissed them all off.

"Just remember, don't treat Tony differently or you'll be the ones freaking him out."

"Right."

Crystal asked "Did Tony tell you-"

"Yeah, he must've told Pepper and Happy I know because we got together to talk about it. Happy compared Tony to an alien because you guys live on the moon, it was kinda fun. Of course, the topic of the adoption came up and that's why I impersonated Tony to let you guys know about Howard."

"Imperson- oh, right." They had thought Tony invited them to the Compound.

"Yeah." Rhodey fielded questions about Tony's adoptives after that, answering the ones he could and emphasizing how it doesn't change anything in regards to how they should treat Tony.


	8. Young Avengers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maximus has a few suggestions for the Avengers Initiative and a surprise for his brother in the works

Maximus made an appointment with Carol Danvers to discuss a matter close to his brother's heart. "How is the Young Avengers Initiative going?"

"It's not, and you know it." Captain Marvel was in charge of the Avengers, mostly the core team in New York but she also led meetings with other team leaders.

Carol didn't mind Maximus, he liked to play mind games but he usually finished the game in one sitting (she knew he was fully capable of the long game, had helped her prepare a long game before). The prince smiled "I think I may have found a way but I don't want to get Tony's hopes up." He held up his tablet and sent her the files. "If we treat school as an outside responsibility then we can use the existing infrastructure for reserve members to bring the Young Avengers into the fold. The Accords only apply to adults and the anonymity clause is rather convoluted but both facts can be used to our advantage, especially since minors have certain protections under the law here and most candidates are American. We can treat the initiative like a mentorship, assigning a full fledged Avenger to work with the team. Oversight could be an issue, someone will have to be put in charge of the initiative, someone outside the individual mentors but I think it could work." Maximus waited for her to go through the outline, "What do you think?"

"It could work, I'll have to consult our lawyers, double check and make sure the paperwork is in order but I think you're onto something." Carol asked Maximus "Is there something else you wanted to discuss? You could have emailed me all this and been done."

"Don't tell Tony until you're sure." Maximus advised "You should adjust the testing standards according to each candidate's experiences. Spider-Man has been active and under the guidance of my brother for over a year, he might be able to pass the standard test but someone who only recently gained powers and needs this to gain control won't be able to. I do not envy whoever has to come up with new standards for this."

"You think Spidey can handle the written portion?"

The original tests did not include a written portion beyond a survey of abilities and some basic bureaucratic information (real name, contact information, consent form for the medical tests). Maximus suggested they add a written test to gage judgement, proposing a timed test with a randomly selected scenario to simulate the snap decisions they would need to make in the field. The written test had a timed portion for just that reason in addition to other questions designed to subtly gage candidates priorities. To join the Avengers, one had to pass all of their tests, fail one and you fail them all. Most had to take the test more than once to pass all portions, the questions on the written portion varied but the rest were standard to all applicants (they did not want a person to simply recognize the question and go with a new answer after failing a prior test).

"Yes, I do. I'm not saying he'll ace it."

"There are people on our roster who don't ace it until renewals."

"Precisely. The test could give you a metric."

"These are kids we're talking about."

"Scale it down but you don't want anyone treating this like a game."

"True."

"How many tries did it take you to ace it?"

"I passed the first time, that in itself is rare." Carol admitted "I've yet to get a hundred percent but my renewal comes with a review of actions and judgements."

"Ensuring they renew the right leader, I know."

"I've aced it a couple times but I'm not sure when I first aced it."

"A hundred percent is impossible, Carol."

"What?"

"A hundred percent implies perfection, nobody is perfect."

Carol looked up her results and found Maximus was right, she didn't get a hundred percent but her answers were all in the acceptable range, "Huh. I didn't know that."

"It's part of the protocols to prevent another Rogers, just like the renewal itself." Avengers had to renew their membership status with regular testing. The more active the Avenger, the more often they were tested. As a reservist, Maximus only had to renew once every few years while Carol's were more quarterly as the current leader of the whole initiative. "Rogers believed himself above reproach, thought he was perfect, look what happened there."

"Right."

"You can't tell anyone the test doesn't allow a hundred percent, that would diminish its value."

"Let people figure it out on their own or live in ignorance, got it." Carol asked "Do you have a proposal outside the Young Avengers Initiative to discuss?"

"Yes. Talking about the test reminded me of an idea, I haven't written anything out for it but I can if you need me to. I was thinking we could work with other law enforcement on a series of thought exercises. The Avengers come up with ways to destroy or conquer the world, our human counterparts come up with contingencies to combat those plans. At the very least, this might motivate some countries to improve on their evacuation protocols."

"You're not the first one to suggest this and if you're willing to do the paperwork, I'm open to submit it for you."

"We'd need to keep it mostly in-house. You never know who will join the dark side or where the next HYDRA might be lurking."

"You want to start with just the Avengers as a test case?"

"Seems reasonable to me. We'll submit suggestions for how to patch any holes in the current system we find. I could write up a proposal for getting people from the Avengers and other agencies together to discuss world domination but something tells me that will just make people afraid the Avengers are going dark, again."

"You're probably right. Why are you telling me this?"

"If some of our plans leak, you need to be able to explain why the Avengers are talking about world domination."

"Right. I'll give you the names of other people who have proposed something similar and you can coordinate with them."

"Thank you." Maximus took the list and shook her hand before leaving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did everyone think about the structure of the Avengers? About Maximus' proposals? Who should be in the Young Avengers Initiative, aside from Peter? Input more than welcome


	9. Facing The World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Attilan joins the UN, things do not go as planned

Pepper never thought much on the twin thing when it came to Tony and Black Bolt, they looked a lot alike, sure, but she could always tell them apart unlike some people. Then Tony decided to join his family for their kingdom's induction into the UN and both twins shaved a few days before. Pepper wasn't sure if Tony was wearing one of his brother's suits, they were the same size of course, or if a set had been made for Prince Ahura, but the result was the same. Even she was having trouble differentiating between the twins, thankfully they were using their respective sign languages and she knew Medusa had yet to master American Sign so Pepper was able to use that to identify Tony signing frantically to Maximus.

Each Inhuman took a deep breath before going on stage. The whole family being present was a tactical decision, a silent show of unity in the face of a world their ancestors had run from. The man charged with introducing them was understandably nervous, Inhumans were known for their powers and not all of the Royal Family's powers were public knowledge. Maximus was introduced as crown prince to avoid any questions about successions. The heir stood opposite the queen and Ahura flanked his brothers. After they were each called by name, Medusa began the prepared speech when armed men in dog masks burst in. Maximus was shot before Crystal could create a barrier of compressed air around the family, which acted as a forcefield. One of the Watchdogs made a show of taking the pin out of a grenade while several others quickly and efficiently wired the doors. Crystal looked at Ahura "Tranq?" From his position crouched over his brother, Ahura nodded. Crystal turned back to the Watchdogs and focused, they had stopped shooting once they saw how the bullets stopped in midair and were now resorting to threatening the room. "You wired the doors to explode, how do you plan to get out alive?" The leader with the grenade lost his cool, abandoning any pretense of professionalism, and Crystal took a chance, pulling the air surrounding the Watchdogs away from them. The various diplomats' security teams made their move as soon as the Watchdogs started to sway from the loss of oxygen. One man grabbed the hand holding the grenade to keep it from going off while another found the dropped pin and put it back in before securing the terrorist's hands. Crystal dropped the barrier as soon as the terrorists were secured, looking back and noting the projector was still on "Computers must be working." Ahura took the cue and ran to a nearby computer.

"That was fast thinking," complimented one of the security guards as he came on stage to better survey the room.

Crystal looked at her sister before responding "We all trained with the Avengers before Thanos."

"Right." Some of the security guards were examining the explosives on the door, the guard on stage took a moment to report what he saw to the rest of his team. "We need to calm everyone down."

Crystal nodded and checked the microphone was undamaged and operational before running over to Ahura "Can you run a translation program through the microphone's output?" Ahura gave her a surprised look before nodding and doing just that. Crystal went back on stage and drew on crowd control training as she spoke in a calm voice, getting the various diplomats and world leaders to return to their seats and let their people work on getting them out.

Ahura asked his family to follow him and then showed them what he found, someone had let the Watchdogs in. Ahura analyzed video of the attack, checking to see who had faked their reactions, indicating prior knowledge. Some people were naturally stoic and others may not be aware of the Watchdogs as their activities didn't quite stretch across the globe, which he took into account. The fact that they targeted Maximus first indicated they knew what his gift was, the crown prince's psychic power wasn't public knowledge. Ahura was careful when using that to eliminate possibilities, knowing that everyone gossips. Based on all of that, he had a few strong suspects that he shared with his family. Leaving them to do their own analysis, he went over to one of the doors and studied the set up. The efficiency that the Watchdogs moved with suggested they had practiced this, the kind of backing the Watchdogs needed had factored into Ahura's deductions but he also considered the possibility that their sponsor for this job wasn't their usual backer. The two perspectives were rather conflicting: either their backer sent them to take out the Inhuman Royal Family or their backer supported/had the support of someone else who let them in for the job. The explosive set up was pretty intricate, too complex for any of the people who were expected to be here to defuse. This was Tony's coming out as Ahura, his way of telling the world he was adopted and Inhuman in one stroke, they had no way of knowing he'd be here. Tony ran back up and interrupted his family's search to type on a blank document _Maximus is an engineer._ The idea of him being eliminated to keep him from stopping them might be valid but there was a chance the interference they feared was not of the psychic variety.

One of the men examining the door Tony looked at came over to ask "Can you defuse it?" Tony nodded. "Then- you're not going to, are you?" The man was getting angry as Tony responded with a headshake. "Lemme guess, you have another way out." Nod.

Crystal stepped in "This was clearly planned, they could have had people on the outside wire the door to prevent a breach."

"Right," the man backed down and returned to his team.

"We have no way of narrowing down suspects until Maximus wakes up, do we?"

Ahura raised an eyebrow and manipulated computer to give them an actual list of suspects. Along with Karnak, he went down the list eliminating suspects. The list was still longer than they would like but it was accurate. The Watchdogs had been stripped of weapons and unmasked by the security guards who weren't working on the doors. The guards had taken over a corner of the room to keep their prisoners contained. Ahura made a list of the Watchdogs, analyzing their attackers and recording their stats. He used the new list to eliminate suspects from the first list, which already excluded those whose reactions were genuine. Maximus woke up at that point, Crystal having gone back to keeping the politicians calm after getting Tony to make the translator work two-way for everyone's sake. Ahura showed his brother what they had figured and Maximus added his own opinions before walking over to the Watchdogs and stealing an empty seat. He just stared at the leader for a solid half hour, getting the terrorists worked up and waiting for them to run out of insults and slurs. Once the Watchdogs' nerves were thoroughly frayed, he pushed into the leader's mind and got answers simply by asking the man a series of questions. Seeing as he was getting results when all others had failed, discussions of what questions to have him ask began and Crystal mediated those conversations, negotiating on her people's behalf while the translator Ahura added recorded every word. A list was made of questions and Crystal delivered it to her cousin, who had a guard write down the answers. In the end, all of Ahura and Karnak's work was for nothing because Maximus was able to just ask once he wore the Watchdogs down enough to slip into their leader's mind, a useful interrogation tactic. Although their powers were similar, at least on the surface, Maximus' interrogation methods did less lasting damage than Wanda Maximoff's.

In the end, the Watchdogs actually helped the Royal Inhumans by letting them demonstrate their power and control. Yes, they were extremely dangerous but threatening them was not a viable solution. They weren't a threat to the people as the Watchdogs believed. After the whole ordeal, Ahura invited them to movie night at the Compound, which was something the Avengers did at least once a month to de-stress. Before they could accept, Medusa reminded them that they had to deal with the fallout from the Watchdogs' attack. Maximus countered "I recorded the interview, Ahura has pictures to run through facial recognition. By movie night, there probably won't be any more Watchdogs. People think Attilan is an island so the Watchdogs couldn't attack us if they wanted to, they won't have a chance to attack Lai Shi either if JARVIS is operating at even half his normal speeds. Tony Stark isn't known for letting attacks on his family go, just ask the Mandarin. Even if the Watchdogs do survive to movie night, they won't make another move knowing what they know now." Black Bolt added his own opinion and Medusa conceded that they would try to be there, it was always a bit scary when the Boltagon brothers tag teamed someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how the UN operates, I've looked it up and only managed to get more confused so keep that in mind. If anyone knows how this might work in real life, let me know in the comments. Prompts for future chapters welcome, as always.


	10. Therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new Avengers Initiative uses Steve Rogers as a guide on what not to do and acts to avoid repeating the mistakes of Fury's Avengers Initiative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Krafter2014 suggested mandated therapy, I put this together as a result

Maximus had an appointment two days after the UN induction incident. Upon reviewing the first batch of test results following the implementation of the written tests, the Accords Council mandated therapy for all active members of the Avengers Initiative. Leaders, full time members, part time members and reserve members were held to the same mandated standard, even though they had different renewal schedules to track their progress. When word got out that the Avengers were now required to attend therapy, donations were offered to pay for the mandate. People were happy to see people with powers getting help, happy to know something was being done to keep those with mental problems off their streets.

Maximus didn't mind the therapy, he actually appreciated it more than most. "Do you want to talk about the attack?"

"On the UN?"

"Yes."

"I was unconscious for most of it but sure." Maximus had tested the bounds of the therapists' confidentiality doctrine by making a few false confessions that his therapist had seen through using reason, proving she wasn't gullible or liable to gossip about patients. "The strangest part happened after, I realized what I did was similar to what Maximoff did and it didn't bother me."

"What did you do?"

"Forced the pack leader to answer my questions, interrogated him that way."

"Why do you think it didn't bother you?"

"Because I didn't change anything in his head, I just sort of suppressed his ability to lie." Psychic powers came with their own set of problems, Maximus appreciated the chance to work through them with someone instead of just learning control and having to deal with the fallout on his own. The mandated session focused on the differences between Maximus and Wanda Maximoff, identifying and emphasizing them as well as addressing the similarities Maximus saw after the incident. Had the doctor not asked about it, the session may have been filled with idle chatter as many were. Therapists working for the Initiative had a responsibility to make their patients deal with issues instead of letting them ignore their problems, they also had the authority to suspend members of the Initiative until they dealt with their problems. After his session, Maximus threw himself into his work at the Compound, waiting for Crystal to come in order to avoid questions about his session. She seemed to think comparing therapy notes was a good idea, Maximus disagreed because that defeated the point of a neutral third party. They accepted each other's stance but old habits die hard and she was less likely to ask about it if he let her come get him instead of calling for Lockjaw. Maybe they should think about talking to one of their mutual friends about the issue, Maximus mused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you, my wonderful readers, think Crystal's view of therapy would be a common one? I think I might do another therapy chapter for her. Maybe she'll look into getting the Young Avengers included in the mandate to deal with their issues, specifically the "I have this power, I can't just not use it because with great power comes great responsibility" issue that leads them to prioritize hero work over having a social life or school. What do you think?


	11. Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahura spends his first birthday with his twin

Maximus nearly drove Carol up a wall triple checking everything but ultimately, his concern was borderline adorable. "What are you doing for Black Bolt?"

"Getting the Council off his back for the whole day so he can tour New York. Technically, I've been able to do that for years since my powers developed but I've been busy with Thanos prep. Medusa's going with him obviously but they're going to use image inducers to hide in plain sight."

"Does Medusa know about this?"

"Yes. She also wants to take that tour so I offered to cover for them as a birthday surprise. It's sort of tradition for all of us to surprise Black Bolt, which has led to some interesting competitions."

"Nobody else gets surprises?"

Maximus shrugged "Not on the level my brother does and that's all I can say."

"Alright, Maximus, everything's set."

Ahura sure was surprised when Crystal, Medusa and Black Bolt appeared via Lockjaw dressed in casual Earth clothes. "What is going on?" he signed and JARVIS translated.

"Maximus' birthday gift to Black Bolt was a day off to explore the city. Everyone else is going to wait for the party tonight- you didn't forget again, did you?" Ahura shook his head and pointed at Bruce, asking if he could bring his friend, "It's your party, Ahura." Crystal led her sister and brother-in-law to the elevator as Lockjaw vanished.

Bruce was a bit nervous about going to Attilan, to a royal birthday party. When the time came, he was shocked by how relaxed everyone was. Crystal had told him that everyone was cool at birthday parties now that they were all adults and unlikely to get hopped up on sugar from eating too much cake but he thought she was joking. Ahura smiled brightly at Maximus, who smiled back and nodded. "What?"

"I'm fluent in both of my brothers' languages."

"Right, you're gonna translate for him."

"It's not hard." Maximus walked over and handed Tony the folder that had been sitting next to the crown prince. "Read it."

Tony rolled his eyes and opened the folder then dropped it when he saw the title. Maximus caught it and handed it to Bruce "You got the Young Avengers Initiative worked out?"

"For a couple weeks now, implementation is going to be a challenge. If we don't want to break any laws, we need to get guardians to sign off on it without endangering themselves or their charges."

"Guardians?"

Tony signed and Maximus translated "Peter lives with his aunt."

"Oh, right."

"And Strange has a child placed in his care who may qualify, Terrance Ward."

"Strange is a parent?"

"Ward's birth father is some other dimensional being and Terrance inherited some of his father's power, you'll have to ask Strange for details but I think the Initiative could help Terrance adjust to his Enhanced status."

"Right. Then there's also Harley, Tony's other possible heir to SI."

"Tony has two titles within SI, correct?" Tony signed yes and Maximus nodded "Why not split them? Give Harley one and Peter the other, make them both your heirs." Tony signed no then explained. Maximus translated "You want Harley to inherit Iron Man and Peter to take your place at SI, that's your current plan but nothing is official." Maximus turned to Bruce "American sign only has ten thousand words in it, Tony has begun using Black Bolt's sign language to fill in the gaps."

"Okay?"

"Most ASL interpreters don't give literal translations, they call doing that transliterating not interpreting. "

"Oh, the meaning is what matters."

"And you can figure out what he's saying the way you've figured out many languages before, through circumstances."

Tony signed to his brothers, telling Maximus not to translate first thing. Bruce caught that "He told you not to translate."

"You're catching on." Maximus signed back and after a bit of banter, he said "Tony's getting so used to Black Bolt's signs that he's started confusing Peter with the new infusion."

"I know, Jarvis also gets confused but they're figuring it out."

"He says Black Bolt's signs are better than ASL."

"So the Young Avengers Initiative, which has been ironed out for weeks, is your gift?"

"It told you both to read it. Third page, I think." Bruce opened it to that, "Peter's already tested in."

Tony snatched the papers, reading the personnel list, most potential recruits had pending next to their names except for Peter who had test scores beside his. Maximus explained "Peter let us use him as baseline. We're trying to calibrate the tests for teenagers with little to no experience, he's been invaluable in that. He also passed the test to join on a reserve basis, making him eligible as team leader under the current system Carol and I designed to get the necessary approval for the Young Avengers."

"Wait," Bruce said "You already have approval."

"It's ready to launch, we just need to fill the roster which involves getting permission from the recruits' legal guardians." Tony hugged his little brother. "We had to put together a proposed roster, which is what took a few weeks since we couldn't just name every Enhanced under 18." Tony signed "Awesome."

"Dang it," Crystal said "Can't top that, why didn't you go last?"

"I already gave Black Bolt his, remember?"

"What was it?" asked Triton, curious.

Medusa answered "Maximus gave both of us a day off and image inducers so we could tour New York."

"His gift was being king for a day?" scoffed Gorgon

Maximus said "The fact you didn't notice should tell you everything, I was prepared to cover in case an emergency came up but I also made sure the schedule was clear so they'd get the full day off."

Medusa asked "Are you really going to fight on Ahura's first birthday in Attilan?"

Gorgon wasn't the brightest and it showed when his reaction to the queen's question proved he hadn't realized Ahura had never celebrated his birthday in Attilan before, having been sent away as an infant (ie before his first birthday). Crystal broke the tension by giving the twins two more gifts, Ahura smiled at the bracelet while Black Bolt looked slightly confused. "Peter made them to translate ASL, based on JARVIS' translations and the image inducers' scanning feature." She told her brother-in-law "JARVIS should be able to update them to include your signs based on the ones Ahura's adopted."

"They're translators?" inferred Medusa "Peter made ASL translators."

"They're prototypes but if they work, they could lessen the language barrier for the deaf. Peter figured it'd be a good idea to test them on people who can hear and correct the translations."

"So they're from Peter?" inferred Gorgon.

"Yeah, they're from Peter. Maximus, did you get Peter's aunt to sign the Young Avengers' paperwork?"

"Before he began his tests. He's all set to lead the team once there is a team to lead," confirmed her cousin.

Tony put his on and signed, smiling wider when the translation came out "Thank you."

"I think Peter heard me mention this party when he was testing for the Initiative, which is why he didn't give them to you."

"Right."

"He's not even here and he's in the lead," muttered Triton.

"I thought Maximus was in the lead?" Bruce looked at Crystal "And I thought you were kidding about the competition."

"It started when Black Bolt started trusting himself around people again and just kind of spiraled," said Crystal.

The gifts for Ahura were definitely creative and someone had apparently introduced Triton to the concept of gag gifts, which made the eldest Boltagon brother's gift from him even more creative. They all had fun, although Triton had to explain the joke when Gorgon teased Crystal about her slice of cake, explaining her sugar high remark to Bruce in the process. Apparently, she was the baby of the family and they loved embarrassing her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out the King and the Princess on Fanfiction.net where Crystal's status as the youngest royal is explored. The story was my inspiration for the sugar high jokes


	12. YA Assemble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first meeting of the Young Avengers, and in some cases their mentors.

The first Young Avengers team consisted of Spider-Man, Rescue, Trauma, Ms. Marvel and Inferno, the last two were Inhumans. Tony gave his new wrist translator a test drive when he went to get Mrs. Keener to sign Harley up for the New Avengers Initiative as his protege Rescue. "Why can't I have a cool name? Iron Man, War Machine, and Rescue, you've got to be kidding."

"He is," Bruce had told Harley "We had to put something on the proposal and since the plan is for Young Avengers to help evacuate battlefields, Rescue seemed appropriate. When you're 18 and you join the regular Avengers then you can change it but for now, it's either Rescue or no armor."

"Well, when you put it that way."

Trauma had been a tough sell, his mentor and guardian Dr. Strange was all for it. Terrance had been placed in his care after the boy attempted suicide to stop him from hurting himself and kept accidentally triggering said powers when he panicked about hurting people, to the point where Strange thought he was about to fight Nightmare not a pubescent boy stuck in a hospital on suicide watch. Once the reason for his visit had been explained, Terrance was placed in his custody. Stephen was all for Terrance joining the Initiative and socializing with kids who understand, somewhat, his situation. Terrance was still terrified of setting people off and refused to even come down to see the recruiter, who he was assured would be unaffected by his power. Eventually, Stephen convinced him on the condition he was allowed to use a binding charm (a compromise as Terrance wanted nothing to do with his power and Stephen wanted him to learn control) and that someone was always there to shut him down, Maximus volunteered before Strange could even finish asking. The name Trauma was probably in poor taste but Terrance liked it, claiming it was accurate, and it's not like his power lent itself to happy codenames.

Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan, was a huge fan of Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers. The current Young Avengers policy required mentors to either act as recruiters or accompany recruiters to meet the guardians of prospective members. Kamala was fully on board the second she saw Carol but her parents worried about their daughter being a superhero. Carol talked them around by explaining that the Young Avengers Initiative was all about training superhuman youths and informing them that Kamala would not be allowed to join superhero fights except to help evacuate civilians, she would then be under the command of a specific Avenger who would watch out for her. Once the program was properly explained and they had a chance to review the paperwork and talk, the Khans signed.

Inferno, Dante Pertuz's parents were perhaps the easiest civilians to convince. Of course, his pyrokinesis saw him matched to Crystal as a mentor and she demonstrated her own control, assuring them the Young Avengers was just a training program and informing them that coming in for a weekend workshop would get them a specially designed suit to work with his powers. The workshops had been around since Terrigen contaminated the water around the island that was officially Attilan, the contamination resulted in fish products triggering Terrigenesis in unsuspecting Inhuman potentials. Since the YA Initiative had been approved, an addition was made to the workshops to include the new program.

May Parker was introduced to Eddie Brock the weekend before the YA summer program began "I know this is kind of sudden but the Young Avengers Initiative requires each member have an individual mentor. Tony is mentoring another recruit in the program, who is set to be the next Iron Man so I'm going to be taking over as Peter's mentor for the program."

"How does that work? For you and Peter, I mean."

"Oh, uh, our powers match better than any other Avengers." That's when Venom popped up to say hello. "See?"

"Yes."

For many, summer vacation had just begun when the YA program started. On the first day, at Tony's insistence, the mentors ran Spider-Man's agility course before instructing their proteges to run it. The demo helped as the teens quickly realized that most of them couldn't do it unaided. Spider-Man, much like Tony, was already an expert. The teens had been assigned red bodysuits for training, Harley couldn't complain about not using his suit since Tony ran it without his and the baseline Stephen Strange ran it without magic. Spider-Man took charge after their second failure, "Miss Marvel, you and I have the best powers for this. You'll have to go through everything last so you can catch anyone who falls." He grabbed Terrance and Harley and jumped onto the balance beam, Kamala grabbed Dante and stretched her legs to get them there.

After setting Dante down, she grabbed the end of the beam, making her team nervous, and shrank back to normal "Guys, chill. I'm taking the same test you are."

Spider-Man led them through the course, Miss Marvel covering the rear to catch anyone who fell. They all made it through in short order. Inferno said "Third time's the charm, I guess."

"You all did great," said Tony using his wrist translator "Took me about thirty tries to get it right."

Crystal rolled her eyes at him "Your spotter was a little overzealous." To that, he just nodded. Crystal told the Young Avengers "Hit the showers and head to the elevator, in that order. Dante, you can keep the suit on if you want."

Harley asked "Why would he?"

Dante answered "I don't have perfect control yet, the suit helps me contain my power. Thanks."

The elevator let them out on a common room, Eddie said "You guys will be staying here for the summer. This is one of two Avengers residential floors, the other one doubles as Tony's penthouse. Let JARVIS know if you need something. You can also ask him basically anything. Venom once asked him why pizza was round, he will literally answer any question." The teens chuckled, "You can also ask him to order pizza but be warned, he's responsible for monitoring you while you're here and he will rat you guys out. That's about it. See you tomorrow."

"Wait, we only had one test?" Kamala asked.

"The real tests are spread out and that wasn't a test, it was a team-building exercise. Consider this team bonding time, alright? Kam, I think you have a designated room."

"Because I'm a girl."

"Yeah, partly. I don't know the full reason but yours is the last door on the left, right JARVIS?"

"Correct."

"Alright. Carol would know the full reason, if there is more than one. Since there's only five of you, you can each have your own room. Only the Young Avengers rooms are unlocked, right?"

"Correct again."

"If the door's locked, move on. You could also ask JARVIS which rooms are set aside for the boys. Unless me or one of the other mentors is around, defer to JARVIS. You'll meet your team handler tomorrow, they'll be responsible for you when you start helping out in the field while we mentors are responsible for your training. Alright?" The teens nodded and Eddie left, hearing the boys racing down the hall as the elevator doors closed.


	13. First Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starring mentor Tony and apprentice Harley
> 
> Bruce shares some hard facts with their youngest recruit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm planning on a set of chapters spotlighting the five mentors and apprentices, starting with Tony and Harley.

"What all can this suit do?" asked Harley, looking at the unpainted armor that was his. Tony pulled up the list he'd prepared for the Young Avengers review board, which oversaw the mentorship program and mostly consisted of experts on childhood development. "Flight, strength, speed, protection, no weapons?"

Tony shook his head and turned his wrist translator on, "Weapons will be locked, you're not supposed to fight until you're 18."

"Locked, meaning you can unlock them if needed?" Nod. "Alright, I'll have to train with those so I'm ready to test into the Avengers when I'm 18, right?" Nod.

JARVIS spoke up "The Young Avengers Initiative is overseen by experts in childhood development, you will likely begin training with weapons near the end of your time in the program."

"Aw, man. But the others get to learn how to fight!"

"You are the youngest member of the Initiative."

Answering Tony's text, which was sent after Harley began to pout and ignore him, Bruce came in, "What's the problem?"

Harley said "I'm the only Young Avenger who won't get combat training."

"First off, that's not true. Trauma won't get combat training either, he's here to make friends. Strange hopes he'll accept power training too but he hasn't so far. Second, you will get combat training while you're here, you just can't use the suit's weapons. Self-defense is standard, we don't want your Inhuman teammates to develop a dependence on their powers so not being able to use the suit's weapons is actually an advantage. And third, do you really think your mother would have signed the parental consent forms if missiles were involved?"

"Oh, guess I overreacted."

"You barely made the cut."

"What?"

"The oversight board approved teenagers but you weren't quite 13 when we presented our list. Another candidate, Ant-Man's daughter, will turn 13 in the fall. If this summer goes well, she might get approved for next year's batch. If this summer doesn't go well, you could be the only group. I know it's a lot of pressure but Tony believes in you." Bruce looked at his fellow scientist who nodded and repeatedly made the sign for I, Bruce having a pretty good handle on the ASL alphabet. "In fact, I think there's something he wants to show you that not even the Accords Council was privy to."

Tony nodded and the hologram showing the suit's specs switched to the HUD display from the Iron Man armor at the end of the battle with Thanos, giving a clear view of Tony and Black Bolt talking and destroying everything between them. Bruce left during the video, having been there, and Harley turned to his mentor at the end "That's why you don't talk, that's what happens when you talk." Tony nodded. "And you knew because you had your powers your whole life, that's why you were exiled. They were afraid of you so they sent you away."

Tony signed GC and JARVIS interpreted "The Genetic Council which ruled alongside King Agon and Queen Rynda sought to have Prince Ahura executed in order to protect the kingdom from his power. Sir's parents sent him away to protect him."

"Oh. Is it just words?" Headshake.

"Sir's power originates in his brain." Two brain scans were shown, one of Tony and one of a normal human. The difference was highlighted with a caption that explained what it meant.

"Any sound we make with our mouth carries your power?" asked Harley, seeing if he understood. Tony nodded. "How old were you? Do you know?" Tony had taken his bracelet off so it would stop translating his fidgeting. The ASL alphabet appeared over his head as he finger spelled the word infant. "How'd you not destroy anything?" Shrug.

JARVIS once again took it upon himself to explain "One of Sir's fellow Inhumans was able to predict when he was about to cry out and soothe him, she was sent with Sir from Attilan and became Sir's nanny after allowing the Starks to adopt him as their own." Tony signed and JARVIS translated "Attilan and America are very different nations." Then he put his bracelet back on "Want to fly?"

"Just one more question, you never really answered it when you were living in my garage, how do you talk in the suit?" Tony finger spelled his AI's name. "Oh, that makes sense. Is my suit like yours?"

Headshake, "You can talk, R can talk."

"R? Oh, Colonel Rhodes." Nod.

JARVIS explained "Initials are often used for name signs in the deaf community, although Sir has developed unique name signs for his friends and family."

"Do I have one?" A nod followed by a sign he used often when he was quote unquote living in Harley's garage. "That's my name sign?"

"For me it is."

"Right, another person using sign would use an H?" He guessed and Tony nodded. "Alright. Maybe you could walk me through how this works before I suit up and crash." Tony face palmed, his wrist translator piping up with an attempt at a translation for an improper sign. "That's a little funny."

"It is a prototype."

"Did you make that?" Headshake and two Ps. He turned off the translator before making a fist with his left hand and miming a spider crawling over it with his right hand. "That's Peter's name sign? Isn't it bad for the secret identity?" Headshake and the two Ps. "Right you can use the other signs." Tony gathered supplies in a bag and pointed to an empty armor case. "What's that?"

"That, Mr. Keener, is a simulator. To avoid crashing on your first flight, I suggest taking advantage of it."

"Right, JARVIS." Once he was standing inside, Tony put pads on him. "Are these all sensors?" Nod. "Why do you have a simulator when you already know how to fly your suit? Did you make this for me?" Headshake.

"This simulator," JARVIS explained "Is a prototype for one currently in use by the Avengers."

"Oh." The helmet was the most complex since, unlike Tony, Harley did need to be able to speak and thus needed a mic. When he had all the sensors in place, he locked Harley's feet into place. "Wait, what-" Tony spun around and Harley copied him, "Oh." Lastly, he put a harness on his apprentice. "Oh, so I don't crash into the walls or door." Nod and Tony closed the door before turning on the simulator, manning the console to use a special type-to-talk comlink. Flight was easy, landing and take off were hard so Tony focused the simulation on that, sending obstacles his way that Harley had to land to avoid. When he ran low on time, he called an end to the sim before ending it. As he helped Harley out of the simulator gear, the Young Avenger said "So glad you didn't let me actually fly."

Tony admitted through JARVIS "The suit isn't operational yet."

"What?"

"It's a project for both of us, since you have more restrictions than the others."

"So when they're running combat sims I can't join, we'll be working on the suit?" Nod. "Awesome. Can I alter the specs?"

"Of course you can customize it," Tony smiled "Colors are up to you too."

"I have a lot to think about." Tony gave him a red backpack with the Avengers A on it in blue. Inside, Harley found "This is full of school supplies? I'm not in summer school." Tony rolled his eyes and pulled out the graphing notebook, which had the word draft book written on it. "Oh, this is so I can work on my designs outside the lab." Nod. As they left the lab to take Harley back to the Young Avengers floor, Tony pulled out a Stark phone from the bag and had Harley set a password before showing him the pre-loaded contacts. "Do all Young Avengers get one of these?" Nodding, Tony took the phone in one hand and the bag in the other, hefting them both before returning them. "Awesome."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Messing with ages a bit, Harley and Cassie were born in the same year but Harley's birthday is in the spring while Cassie's is in the fall. Harley's barely 13 when the summer starts and Cassie's almost 13. Harley was about 10-ish when he helped Tony because I want to keep him in double digits when he faced off against the Extremis soldiers and this gives Tony more than a year to push for Harley to be in the Young Avengers with little success in launching the program before Maximus gets to work (thinking of Inhuman kids following in Peter's footsteps by becoming kid vigilantes). In my head canon for this, Trauma is a year or two older than Harley with the baggage of someone twice their age thanks to his Nightmare powers. The others are around 16, the Inhumans having at least half a year to adjust to their powers and Spidey having over a year with his powers
> 
> And Peter's gift has some bugs, it's in early development stages which is why our favorite mutes are testing it (they can hear the words the device is producing and correct their signs as needed)


	14. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange takes an unorthodox approach to helping his ward control his power, relying on Maximus and an old friend

Maximus knew almost from the second he agreed to help Strange that this was probably a bad idea but he gave his word and that was that. Now he was laying down on a cot, getting all sorts of monitoring equipment hooked up. Dr. Christine Palmer, an old friend of Stephen's, had agreed to oversee this exercise as a neutral doctor- Dr. Strange himself freely admitted to a conflict of interest where Terrance was concerned. Once the monitors were all set, Stephen coaxed Terrance, who was laying on a cot across the room, to sit up while Christine just told Maximus to do so. Strange waited for Palmer to give the go-ahead before removing the bracelet that bound Terry's powers, prompting Maximus to enter the teen's mind. They couldn't practice the psychic maneuvering that would be needed to keep Terry's power from manifesting in the physical world, meaning that Maximus had to go into this almost blind but he managed. The fact that Terry got his power from having a psychic demon for father may have possibly helped. Entering the teen's mind, Maximus took over the part of Terry's mind that was responsible for his power. As Strange had guessed, his ward's mind fought back and soon, they were locked into a nightmare scenario:

Terry's first thought when he was sent into the nightmare was, of course, this isn't so bad. He was playing video games with Dante in the Young Avengers common room. Nothing about that seemed scary, he even had his bracelet on, it was actually fun. He quickly forgot it wasn't real as he won the game and Dante's eyes glowed before a polite reminder from JARVIS had the Inhuman taking deep breaths to calm down.

Maximus was confused, at first, because he was in Attilan. How was he in Attilan? Terry had never seen his home. Then he remembered his mind contributed to the simulation and relaxed his paranoia, Terry probably didn't know what he was seeing. Once he calmed down, Maximus decided to explore the palace to see how close to the present his mind had brought him, trying to guess what the nightmare would be. He was caught by Karnak, who was wondering why he was in the capital, noting how much time he spent in New York. During the conversation, he forgot he was in a simulation.

When both men fell into the trap of believing that what they were seeing was real, the nightmare began in earnest. Crystal left the Tower for a meeting with her family, not five minutes before Maximus was asked to cover for Strange as an Avenger who could shut Terry down (something the teen needed to feel safe). Maximus ran into Crystal as he set off to find Lockjaw, his cousin getting the alert about Hive being released as they argued over the dog. Maximus sent her to brief their family, hoping he could relieve Strange in time for the sorcerer to simply send the ancient, evil Inhuman back to Maveth. Following protocol, Crystal briefed their family, forwarding the alert via text, then took Lockjaw to Attilan's island city to initiate lockdown. As soon as Strange was gone, the Tower similarly went into lockdown to protect Inferno and Ms. Marvel. Evacuations of Inhumans to secure facilities (as pre-arranged when the Inhumans were transitioning) began, even though everyone was hopeful that the Avengers could handle the threat before it spread too far. Inhuman Avengers were called to their nearest base to help process the incoming Inhuman civilians. Everything was as neat and orderly as possible, it could almost be a drill. Maximus was stuck acting as Attilan's only tie to the outside world, lockdown meant no outgoing communication, and Terry's stand-in guardian. Stressful but not terrifying, although Maximus wasn't sure why he was analyzing the situation like that.

When he was an Avenger, Maximus went to Kamar-Taj to learn the basics of magic. He still had a Sling Ring and he knew that making portals was on the list of magic things Stephen taught Terry to try to bring him out of his shell. After they went into lockdown, Maximus tried to talk to Terry, to comfort him using facts- it actually worked better than it usually did- but then he got the alert and Terry was leaning against him on the couch so he saw the same message Maximus did. Stephen was being declared KIA, Hive killed him.

So many Avengers had been declared dead then turned up alive that protocol for making that call was very rigid and more than a little convoluted. First someone on-site had to call it then that call was picked apart by experts when they arrived on scene. The alert was sent out if there was enough evidence for a reasonable assumption and a certain number of Avengers/experts agree but no death certificate was issued until every test known to man and then some was run. The certificate still had to be issued before the funeral and for the families' sake they didn't delay that more than absolutely necessary. Betting pools usually sprung up between the alert and the signed certificate regarding how the fallen hero would make his/her dramatic comeback. Most pools dissolved at some point during the funeral rites.

Knowing that, Maximus couldn't bring himself to lie and tell Terry it was likely a false alarm. Not that he had a chance, the boy jumped to his feet and had a panic attack before the Inhuman prince could say a word. Luckily, Maximus was well versed in talking someone down from an episode and he managed that with Terry, calming his mind enough to remember what was really going on in the process. He swiped the inhibitor bracelet, even though it wasn't real, off Terry's wrist before the boy finished calming down and watched him run off. Thinking back to the start of his own nightmare, how they weren't shown the same thing, Maximus opened a portal to a deserted part of Attilan and stealthily made his way to the throne room, the only part of Attilan the outside world had seen, the only part Terry had seen. Sure enough, Hive showed up then Terry opened a portal between the royals and the monster of an Inhuman, changing form several times as he showed Hive his hosts' greatest fears before identifying and settling on the parasite's greatest fear. Whatever form he had taken, Maximus couldn't see, he only saw Terry facing Hive unafraid. Once he hit on the parasite's fear, Terry adjusted his stance, ready to end things. He waited for Hive to inevitably lash out and attack him, opening a portal in the Inhuman terror's path. Maximus came out of hiding to say "Good job."

"You were there the whole time?!" Maximus held up his bracelet and Terry looked down at himself "I stopped all on my own."

Maximus asked "How'd you know Hive was here? Or where here is?"

"I don't know, I didn't- this isn't real."

"Psychic feedback loop."

"What?" The simulation ended as Terry had managed to stop himself, thus ending the feedback loop. "What's a psychic feedback loop?"

"My attempt at a scientific name. Basically, I went into your head and triggered your powers, which in turn triggered your natural defenses." Maximus asked "When you tried to look into a mirror to use your power on yourself, was Strange standing behind you?"

"Yeah," Terry's eyes widened "And he didn't appear in the mirror, that's why the nightmare-"

"Had the Inhuman boogeyman kill him, you basically combined our fears to create a terrifying simulation," he stressed the last word, "My power, being more invasive, boosted yours. I think you now know what your father's like. Based on the name Nightmare and the fact Strange went to the hospital to fight him, I presume your father enjoys doing what we just did. You don't and as long as that's true, you don't compare to him or Hive."

"Hive, that's the monster's name?"

"He was one of the first Inhumans, intended to be a commander. He can possess dead baselines, use their corpses as hosts, and control Inhumans, creating a sort of hive mind. Without a host, he's just this swarm of parasites. All I know about him comes from legends, even Captain Marvel who spent time among the Kree has only heard of him in that context. Hive views himself as a god, the rightful king of the world, or at least Inhumans. Scary thought, right? Remember, Terry, I signed up for this. I mean that literally, Dr. Palmer made me sign medical release forms."

Terry smiled "After all that, you're not afraid of me."

Maximus pretended to think about it, "No. Your bracelet's off now and you still look like a teenager who needs more sleep and sun."

Dr. Palmer said "He's actually right about the sun and sleep thing."

Stephen said "Just to be clear, you can go outside. If you're not ready to deal with crowds, you can come up to the penthouse and sit on the balcony. Even if you play on your phone outside, you're still getting sunlight."

"As a doctor, shouldn't you be recommending a book not blue light?" asked Maximus.

"Terry's a teenager, I'm being reasonable."

"I'm also right here," said Terry, looking like he wanted to laugh at the dynamic between the psychic and the sorcerer.

"As for sleep, JARVIS won't enforce a curfew unless half the team starts showing signs of sleep deprivation." Strange had an idea, "JARVIS, how much time do we have left in our scheduled session?"

"Fifteen minutes."

"I thought we had hours," said Terry.

Maximus countered "If the simulation was accurate then we should've run out of time."

"Oh," Terry thought about it, he had watched a movie with Kamala in the dream, "Right."

Stephen removed the leads and led Terry out of the room. Maximus asked Christine "How'd we do?"

The doctor removed his leads "Your vitals were pretty stable but that's not too surprising given the apparent nature of your nightmare scenario."

"Good to know."

Boarding the elevator, Stephen requested "Young Avengers floor. Terry, next time we do individual training, you and I are going to set up wards against your father on both Avengers floors."

"That sounds like a good idea."

"For now, we're going to put the wards around your room. Don't attempt to make wards unsupervised, a small mistake could be the difference between blocking and summoning."

"Right."

"Do you want the bracelet back?"

"No, I want to try going without."

"The penthouse is just above your floor, it'll be waiting there even if I get called away."

"Okay." Terry felt calm, he wasn't worried about control after turning his power off on his own. He knew that Maximus probably helped but he still felt he could do it. The safety net of the bracelet was good, in case he was wrong. Stress was his main trigger, if he got stressed and needed to shut himself down, he could probably use the bracelet.

Stephen put a comforting hand on his ward's shoulder as he saw the boy begin to tense with worry "Your power only works on people, remember?" He gave his mentor a confused look "JARVIS doesn't count, as far as your power is concerned. He knows your triggers and he'll be monitoring you. There's nothing to worry about."

"Okay. I trust you."

"Good, I'm glad." Making wards was surprisingly easy but it also ate up the last of their time before the other teens returned from training.


	15. Elements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crystal and Dante

Unlike his fellow Young Avengers, Dante almost never took his training suit off. The rule was that Inhumans had to achieve basic control before being allowed to return home after transitioning. Basic control amounted to finding the on and off switch for their powers if there was one, not all Inhumans had that luxury. In Dante's case, he found the switch but sometimes it was like the switch flipped itself, which was not good. Crystal read about her mentee's struggles with controlling his gift and asked JARVIS to clarify a few things before coming to a decision on how to spend the allotted one-on-one training time. One by one, the mentors came to the dorms and took their mentees away. Crystal came last, stressing Dante out just a bit. She held out a backpack for him to take as he boarded the elevator "Where are we going?"

"Out."

"Out, like out of the Tower?"

"Yeah."

"I thought this was supposed to be training."

"I am going to be totally honest with you, I was given a file on you and it seems that casual control is what you struggle with. New York is a very loud and busy city, there's a lot of small things that can set off someone who is on edge. We're both pyrokinetic, we were matched for the program based on powers. You lose control, I'll rein you back in. Your transitioner noted that you have excellent conscious control, which is the only thing we would be able to work on inside the Tower."

"Oh, okay." Dante looked inside the bag and found a phone, among other things.

"All of that stuff is fireproof, a gift from my brother-in-law."

"Brother- oh, you mean Tony Stark?"

"Yes." As the elevator reached the lobby, Crystal tapped the front pocket of the backpack and pulled a security badge out of her back pocket. Dante found a similar badge where she indicated and clipped it on his hoodie, zipping up the bag and putting it on. Once they were outside, Crystal put her badge away and Dante put his in his hoodie pocket, the princess asking "What do you want to do?"

Dante shrugged and they just spent most of their time walking around the city. Crystal's phone alerted her when it was time to head back and that's when things went sideways, a couple of muggers attempted to rob them. Pasting a slightly panicked expression on her face, Crystal held her hands up in front of her defensively. A moment later, the muggers were thrown into the alley wall by a sudden gust of wind. Dante asked "What do we do now?"

"Call it in." Crystal was already dialing as she said that and pulled out her security badge to read off the number. Pulling out his own badge, Dante realized that it had the Avengers logo on it with a Y attached to the A for Young Avengers not the SI logo he had just assumed it had since Crystal was leading him through SI security using it. Crystal made two phone calls, one to the authorities and the second to the Tower to let JARVIS know they would be late getting back because they had to wait for police to come get the would be muggers. "Are you okay, Dante?"

"Not really."

"Look at your hands." As he did so, a look of confusion came over him. "They're still fleshy, not molten or on fire. You're freaking out and your powers are still contained." At his incredulous look, she rolled her eyes "I did not arrange our near mugging. In case you forgot, I was following you throughout the city."

"Right."

The cops took their statements and took the muggers away, Crystal showing her ID badge to explain how they took down their attackers without hurting themselves. Quietly, she asked the officer for directions back to the Tower, explaining "I am supposed to be helping him with his powers and stressing him out is counterproductive to that. Is there any way we can avoid crowds?" The officer, a local if Crystal wasn't mistaken, gave her a kind smile and advised her on what roads would not be as busy as the main streets. "Thank you." She took Dante home the back way the officer told her about, the elevator stopped on the YA dorms to let Dante off first.


	16. What If?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taking a break from the Young Avengers to explore what would have happened in this AU if Ahura had not become Tony Stark. What if he never left Attilan?

Myrra had been a blessing upon the entire Inhuman Royal Family for her ability to soothe Crown Prince Ahura's cries to contain his destructive power. As such, the servant woman was elevated to an upper caste position as a reward for helping the future king. By the time he was a toddler, Ahura knew not to make a sound. Some rumors had surfaced before then alleging that Prince Ahura had been banished because the infant had all but disappeared after his Terrigenesis and the raising of the minimum age for the Inhuman rite of passage to 12, although many are even older before they undergo the rite to determine their place in Attilan.

At the age of four, Prince Ahura began developing his own language, teaching his twin Blackagar and later his youngest brother Maximus before letting their parents in on the secret. At age ten, he convinced his twin to read over a hundred words as well as the phonetic alphabet into his pocket interpreter, a device that translates text into spoken words, so that the voice matches what his would be. By this point, both of his brothers and all of the adults in the Royal Family understand his language as well as Nukos and Tibor, two boys being raised to join the Genetic Council and thus forbidden from undergoing Terrigenesis. Nukos, the elder of the two, often translated for his highness before the handheld's completion while Tibor assisted in the creation of the handheld.

As the heir to the throne, Ahura is privy to some very top secret conversations. The fact that nobody outside Nukos, Tibor and his family can understand him may have played a role in the decision to allow him into such meetings despite his youth. When he learned of issues in the lower castes, he used his secret language to ask Uncle Korath "May I come with you on your inspection?"

Well aware of his nephew's gift for technology, which is most likely unrelated to his Terrigenesis, Korath answered aloud "Only with your father's permission."

King Agon asked his brother "What did he request?"

"He wants to come with me for my inspection."

King Agon signed to his wife "Is he still ahead in his studies or am I thinking of Maximus?"

Queen Rynda answered in sign "Both."

Aloud, King Agon said "He may go with you but he may not ask you to translate. Blackagar tells me that he read over a hundred words into the interpreter to perfect it. I would like to ask Mander to begin lessons with Maximus, who has shown promise in his studies."

Mander said "Seeing as Maximus and Karnak are around the same age, I see no reason to refuse. A peer could help both boys improve as people as well as scholars."

"My thoughts exactly."

Ahura went with his uncle and found many ways to improve the infrastructure without adding a thing, he recommended they close the mines to enable miners to work on the improvements. Korath approved but needed the king's approval for such a shift, they returned to the palace to put their suggestions to their sovereign. Korath prefaced his report by saying "Your son was immensely helpful, although he did stop me before I could make the planned address to offer his suggestions."

"I believe that we could make do for the time needed, if you would oversee the project personally, brother."

"Yes, my king."

Ahura found Maximus and Karnak arguing after he himself was dismissed, he pulled out his interpreter "What is wrong?"

Maximus turned, expecting Blackagar, and was pleasantly surprised to find himself looking at his oldest brother. Ahura always wore the family crest, which helped people tell him and his identical twin brother apart while also marking him heir to the throne. The youngest prince crashed into the eldest, hugging him tightly "Ahura! You're back."

"I wasn't gone that long, just a day."

"Yes but father stuck me with Karnak."

"To give you a peer."

Karnak and Maximus looked at each other and blinked in perfect sync, a silent 'oh' being communicated through the look and amusing Ahura. Karnak straightened "That makes more sense than the king wishing me to babysit the youngest prince."

"Especially when we're so close in age," agreed Maximus.

"They must have forgotten to tell us."

"What did they tell you?" asked Ahura, using the handheld.

"They just brought up- oh, a common interest and suggested we discuss it."

"They probably did not want you to feel babied, which backfired."

Maximus asked "Where were you?"

"Helping Uncle Korath and I think that is all I am allowed to say."

A few short years later, Crown Prince Ahura was privy to a meeting between his parents and the Genetic Council wherein the Council accused his Aunt Ambur and Uncle Quelin of treason. Prince Ahura signed to his parents "Lies."

Rynda signed back "You cannot let your emotions get the better of you."

Ahura looked at her strangely then muted his interpreter as he pulled it out and explained how he knew the Council was wrong, namely their time table did not add up and the accused had no reason to betray them. He also suggested betrothing Medusa to him to ensure their continued loyalty since he was nearing the age when he could be betrothed and his wife had to be of royal blood, even though he could not have children. His mother passed his idea onto his father, who almost smiled but covered it up in time "If you think Ambur and Quelin are planning to betray us then we should take preventative measures, remind them of what such an act could cost them. Perhaps we could betroth Ahura to Medusalith. We all know that my younger sons will father heirs to the throne, assuming nothing tragic befalls Ahura before they are of age to do so. By betrothing Medusalith to Ahura, we are ensuring that her parents will need the good will of this council to continue their line." The way he presented it sounded devious but the Council approved and changed their tune against killing the so-called traitors. Ahura convinced his parents to enlist Maximus in finding the real traitor, pointing out how much the youngest prince knew that was not commonly known and reminding them that they needed to consider how his brothers could best serve Attilan to keep them in the upper castes. Two children from two pregnancies was the norm, the Council had sought to have Ahura executed after his Terrigenesis and failing that, still encouraged his parents to try for another child just in case. Had Rynda not given birth to twins, Maximus would be his brother's heir until his brother sired his own child. He would be the spare heir not the spare to the spare heir, his situation was rather unique since he had two older brothers yet he was born to the king and thus eligible for the throne, in theory.

At dinner that night, Ahura took his place on his father's right with his mother on Agon's left, Blackagar situated between Rynda and Maximus, their usual seating arrangement when they had guests. When it was just the five of them, the twins broke protocol and sat beside each other. In fact, the family often communicated solely in Ahura's special language when they were alone. That night, the Amaquelin family was joining them. Quelin was nervous, he had heard talk of a treason conviction but doubted his sentencing would happen over dinner. "Relax, Uncle," signed Ahura. The fathers were seated across from each other at the ends of the table, Ambur sat between Maximus and her husband, Medusalith sat beside her father with little Crystalia beside her. The remaining chair across from Blackagar had been removed to allow Crystal's dog Lockjaw to join them. Ahura's first success in winning over the Genetic Council had been convincing them to let Crystalia adopt their creation instead of euthanizing the genetically engineered, giant, teleporting dog. She named him Lockjaw after losing a game of tug of war to him, splitting a long leaf Ahura gave her instead of the pillow she originally selected.

King Agon waited until the servants left after serving dinner to inform Quelin "The Genetic Council and I have reached a decision regarding our families, yours and mine." As if anyone could think he was calling the Genetic Council a family, thought Blackagar. "Your eldest daughter and my eldest son are hereby betrothed. As I am sure you know, the matter of Ahura's marriage has been a contentious one since he will be king one day yet cannot sire heirs."

Medusalith wanted to scream, Ahura could tell and for a moment, his mind wandered as he thought about all of the things he would never do because he was prematurely exposed to the Mists. Screaming, talking, laughing, yawning, grunting, groaning, moaning, sighing, even coughing or sneezing were out of the question. Almost any sound a normal person could make, he could not indulge in for the good of the kingdom. The moment passed and he aimed his hands at his youngest brother, getting Maximus to speak out of turn so that their father would give him a role to play "Since Medusa will be queen, she needs to learn Ahura's language. Maximus, you will work around Medusa's schedule to teach her your brother's signs. Maximus, I am trusting you with the future of the kingdom. If Ahura and Medusa cannot communicate then they cannot ensure a prosperous future for Attilan. As the younger princes of Attilan, you and Blackagar have always shared a role in that reign. I am glad to see you taking that role so seriously in advancing your studies."

"What role?" asked Crystal before clapping her hands over her mouth.

King Agon and Queen Rynda had decided, as most parents with two children of different ages do, to hold off on Blackagar's Terrigenesis until Maximus was of age and have their children go through the Mists together. Blackagar answered Crystal's question, "When Ahura is king, I will be heir to the throne. The heir is also chief advisor but Maximus and I will share the role of chief advisor just as we both share the role of Ahura's younger brother." The teen had let his displeasure show, which was not good for the family image.

Angered, King Agon said "If you do not keep up in your studies, Maximus alone will have the title of chief advisor. If either of you fail in your responsibilities, you may find yourself removed from succession."

"Yes, Father," both boys intoned.

Medusa asked Maximus when they should begin work on Ahura's signs, giving him a way to escape the shame his brother had caused. Ahura reached out and began petting Lockjaw, easily distracting Crystal. Dinner was still tense but not as much as it could have been and Rynda confided in Medusa's parents afterwards that the betrothal was Ahura's way of getting them out of the treason charges, the Council wanting control more than justice. Truth be told, Rynda was the one who was not happy with how things were but the Council could not go after the queen so they went after her confidants. Ahura had proven himself more than enough to be brought into that confidence and acted as a go-between with his father to enact real change. His inventions improved the lower caste more than they aided the upper caste, Maximus making up the difference when he found the time and Medusa's parents playing their role to enact the change needed to implement the technology.

By the time Medusa mastered the Crown Prince's language to his parents' satisfaction, the younger princes had undergone Terrigenesis, which resulted in Blackagar gaining his brother's gift and being placed in the same isolation chamber to learn control. Instead of a nursery, Ahura had spent his infancy in a isolation chamber specifically designed to contain dangerous powers. Luckily, Blackagar already knew how to deal with his gift from watching his brother but Ahura had the advantage of never speaking and Blackagar made the occasional slip up, often setting him back weeks in his training. Had he been blessed with nearly any other gift, Blackagar would have been the chaperone for Ahura and Medusa's courtship. Gorgon shared his Terrigenesis Ceremony with Karnak shortly before the younger princes had theirs. Medusa was waiting for her sister to come of age, which is the only reason she had not undergone Terrigenesis after the Boltagon brothers. Triton had undergone Terrigenesis as an infant, same as Ahura, but people rarely remembered that. The semi-aquatic Inhuman, the Crown Prince and the daughters of Quelin were the only members of the Royal Family neither married nor undergoing the transition. Mander took Medusa to visit Ahura who was contemplating the contrast between his brothers' results and wondering whether he really had it easier never knowing the luxury of speech as opposed to his twin who had to learn to stop speaking. "Hey." Ahura quickly stood and bowed to his betrothed, who curtsied in return then began to clumsily sign "How are you?"

"Good." He signed back "Thinking." Then he frowned and signed the word _name_.

"What about names?"

He pasted on a curious expression and tried again "Name sign?"

"Oh," Medusa covered her mouth with one hand.

Mander told her "Nobody expects you to stop speaking. Just the opposite, our ideal outcome would be for you to replace his handheld when he is king. Otherwise he will always be texting when the people see him."

"Oh." Medusa turned back to her betrothed after nodding to her uncle "Yes, I know everyone's name signs. Are you thinking about your brothers?" Nod.

The prince sent Mander a desperate look and the older Inhuman sighed before explaining "The Genetic Council claims Maximus was rendered human, Ahura does not believe they are correct."

Medusa realized that as the future queen, she could more or less speak her mind. "That doesn't make sense. He is of the purest, strongest Inhuman bloodline. More than likely, his gift is simply much subtler than his brothers." Ahura moved in front of her, making it easier to look at both him and Mander, before signing for mind repeatedly. "You think he has mental powers." Nod and then he signed for himself and mind. "Your power originates in your mind as would Blackagar's if they are truly the same gift." Nod. "You want the Council to order a brain scan to see if Maximus' mind was altered?" Nod.

Mander asked "Have you suggested this to your parents?" Sullen nod. "We will have to cut this short. Medusalith?" The future queen curtsied to them both and made her departure with the necessary pleasantries. Mander looked Ahura in the eye "Your timing was not ironic, you want me to scan Maximus' brain." Nod. "You will make a great king." He left to make the arrangements, considering the good and bad traits his nephew had displayed.

Maximus' brain scan gave his parents the ammunition they needed to root out the real traitors, executing the treacherous members of the Genetic Council. His psychic powers were perfect for a member of the upper caste, saving him from the mines the Council had attempted to send him to. Maximus was permitted to chaperone his brother's courtship until Gorgon completed his training. Medusa saw more and more of Triton, her future bodyguard, as her wedding date approached. Blackagar was nearly an adult before he passed the pain trials but he was still issued a muzzle to deal with hard to control unconscious sounds. Medusa had been shocked to hear Ahura had never coughed or sneezed, that he had learned to suppress such sounds out of necessity. Still, Blackagar was out in more than enough time to attend the wedding. Near the end of his isolation, his whole family had been granted visitation rights to encourage him not to regress. Medusa had learned to love the thoughtful, kind king she would wed, especially when he confided in her the reason for their betrothal shortly before her Terrigenesis.

They were chaperoned up until the wedding itself when they were separated for a full week of preparations, most of which were done without them. Their apartment, for their time together before ascending the throne, was shown to them individually. Ahura enjoyed the kiss at the end of the ceremony, his and her very first kiss. Ascending the throne was made easier by King Agon choosing to step down in order to guide his son in the early days of his reign.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think? Seriously, should I do more what-ifs in this series of stories?


	17. Handler

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Young Avengers meet their handler. Set before First Flight

Daisy Johnson was an Avenger. She was also Inhuman and one of the Lai Shi Elders, a position she inherited from her late mother. As an Avenger, she had passed the tests to lead her own team. During the fight against Thanos' forces, she led a team of Inhumans. After Thanos' death, her team transferred to the Avengers reserves and she switched to part-time, making Lai Shi her priority. When the Young Avengers Initiative was being hashed out, she was approached with an offer to act as the team's handler, leading them in the field. She accepted on the condition that her part-time status not change, she had her reasons for choosing part-time over reserves.

The day after the summer pilot program began, Gordon dropped Daisy off in the penthouse. She joined the mentors in going over the day's plan, which was to lay out the command structure before splitting them up into mentor-mentee pairs. Daisy went down to the dorms alone and waited for the teens to make their way to the common room. "Who are you?"

"My name is Daisy Johnson, my codename is Quake." She gave the same answer to each and every Young Avenger as they came out of their rooms. Once they were all out and eating breakfast, she explained "I'm your team's handler. When you go out into the field, I'll be responsible for you. If you go out with your mentor, they'll be responsible for you. If you're out on a mission and your mentor is deployed there as well, we will both be responsible for you. When you're ready to start training for field work then I'll start working with you on that. Until then, your mentors are responsible for you and your training."

"Alright," said Dante. "Makes sense. You just dropped in to tell us that?"

"Yup." Overall, the first meeting went well in Daisy’s opinion.


	18. Spiders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Venom and Spider-Man

Eddie tossed Peter his YA bag, "We were each asked to pack a bag of things for our mentees and since I was a last minute selection, you get what you pay for. Tony provided new Stark-phones for everyone, they're pre-programmed with numbers for the people in this program." Peter looked inside, Eddie had given him the phone, a couple of video games and a notebook with a pen stuck in the spiral. "Check the front pocket."

Peter pulled a lanyard out of the front pocket with a security badge and "A press pass?"

"Yeah. Outside mandatory Avengers training, I don't have any superhero training. Venom is, well, he's a part of me but he's not me if that makes any sense."

"What is he?"

"He's an alien symbiote who likes to call me a loser but sticks with me anyway."

"Wow."

"What's your deal? How'd you, y'know?"

"I was bitten by a radioactive spider on a class field trip."

"What was your class doing near radioactive spiders?"

"I go to the Midtown School of Science and Technology, it's a specialty school." They left the building and started walking down the street.

"Huh, interesting. I broke into the Life Foundation's labs, following a scientist who worked there and wanted to expose some of the shady stuff they were doing. I found a woman there in one of these glass cells, I was trying to save her when I picked up Venom instead. Your story isn't nearly as insane as mine, don't you think?"

"Yeah. What story are we working on today?"

"Just checking in with some Inhuman families, making sure the government is in compliance with the Inhuman Rights Accords and trying to stir up some awareness. People need to stop thinking that having super powers means you're either a hero or a villain. Nothing is that black and white." Eddie suddenly stopped, "Thanks for the reminder, V but you're a little late."

"What's wrong?" asked Peter.

"V just reminded me that I don't know my way around New York. If I give you a list of addresses, could you show me the fastest route to each one? I'm supposed to return you to your dorm after a few hours."

"I'll try." They ducked into a store and Eddie showed him the list he had gotten. "How'd you get this list?"

"There's a website, it's like an online support group for everyday Inhumans. They welcome all Enhanced and technically, I qualify."

"Right. Follow me."

They had a very productive day. Eddie even managed to be polite, which many people who knew him would call a miracle. Most of the people they spoke to were won over by Peter's adorable rambling. "If things change, give me a call." Eddie passed out business cards and Peter used his phone to take pictures of the Inhuman families. Eddie stopped Peter from leading him to the next house when they started to run low on time. The reporter pulled out a slip of paper with an address he had gotten from one of the people he interviewed, "Show me where that is." The only complaints they had heard thus far were of employers pressuring Inhumans to use their powers to boost efficiency. One name kept coming up, a construction company that proudly employed many Inhumans. As they approached the worksite, Eddie told Peter "Get you phone out and start rolling, people act very different on camera and that's usually a good thing." They picked up hard hats on their way in and started walking around. Eddie caught an Inhuman taking a breather, "Excuse me."

"Can't talk now."

"When's your break? We can wait."

Eddie followed the man's gaze to the foreman before the man shook his head and got back to work. Eddie glanced at Peter, wondering if he should take the kid home and come back but he was already here, he wasn't entirely sure he could find his way back in time in this busy city. The man had been panting hard and he responded to being asked when his break was by shaking his head, which made Eddie suspect he didn't get a break. As he thought about, Eddie got the feeling it was now or never. This company couldn't proudly boast Inhuman employees while exploiting said employees if they didn't know how to cover their tracks. Eddie Brock approached the foreman with Peter keeping his phone on the man "Excuse me, sir."

"Who the hell are you? Get out of my construction site."

Eddie pulled out his Stark Tower security pass, which had the Avengers logo on it "Want to try that again?"

With a huff of annoyance, the foreman asked "What can I do for you?"

"I'd like to see the schedules for your Inhuman employees."

"What's the kid doing with you?"

Peter introduced himself "My name's Peter Parker, I'm Dr. Stark's intern, he sent me to help out with this project." Now that the world knew Tony Stark was Inhuman, that actually made sense to the foreman. Most of it anyway, he had no idea why Stark would send his intern to snoop in his construction site but that was really above his paygrade. Eddie took pictures of the employees' schedules and made a mental note to check in with them when they were off-duty.

"Thank you for your cooperation, sir. We'll head back to the Tower to give our report to Prince Ahura." The reminder that Tony Stark was actually a prince had the intended effect.

Peter waited until they were safely in the elevator to ask "Are we really working for Dr. Stark?"

"Call him Tony and sort of. Tony is kind of a go-between for Attilan and the human world. I'm going to check in with those employees once the site closes for the night, I'll need to get Tony to sign off on this, in case that foreman tells his boss and they decide to fact check us. You did great back there, Peter."

"What do you think is going on?"

Eddie gave his mentee a tense smile "I think they might be exploiting their Inhuman employees, overworking them. I also think they're cooking the books to make it look like the Inhumans are getting breaks they're not getting and working reasonable hours, which they may or may not be doing. Don't worry about it, Peter. Tony and I can handle it." With a sigh, Eddie told him "This is actually a good object lesson for you. There's more to being a hero than fighting supervillains. Every action has consequences. Unfortunately, sometimes the bad guys are smart like Carlton Drake and they convince people they're the good guys. Sometimes people do bad things but they manage to get away with it because they didn't technically break the law. I'm going to give you some homework, I want you to do two things for me. One: I want you to make a couple lists. I want you to list every action you take as Peter Parker that has an impact, that affects someone else, and I want you to follow that impact as far as it'll go, give me cause and effect. Then I want you to do the same thing for Spider-Man and think very carefully about Spider-Man's actions. When you stop an assault, you affect at least two people. In a third list, I want you to look at the consequences, good and bad, that being Spider-Man has had on Peter Parker. Then do the opposite, look at what being Peter Parker has done for Spider-Man. If you're not totally mentally exhausted after making the four lists, check out my old show. The system doesn't work without public awareness. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Alright, send me the video and the pictures then enjoy the rest of the night." Peter texted him the pictures and promised to do his homework as the doors opened on the YA floor. "Try to have some fun, play some of those video games I gave you."

"I will."

As the elevator closed, Eddie asked JARVIS "Can I assume you're one step ahead of me, as always?"

"Whatever do you mean, Mr. Brock."

"I need to talk to Tony."

The genius confirmed JARVIS had briefed him "If anyone looks into it, I contracted you to check on New York's Inhuman pop. I am going to need your findings A-S-A-P." The wrist translator was amazing, in Eddie's opinion. Although Brock knew from doing research on Tony Stark that the man created his first text-to-talk translator decades before talk-to-text was a thing.

Eddie sent Tony the media files, "I'm going to call the families, arrange a visit after the site closes so I can talk to the Inhumans when they're off-duty. Could you look into the company's financials, make sure they're paying the Inhumans what they're supposed to? Try to do it without hacking so that prosecuting these bastards will be doable." Tony gave him a thumbs up and Eddie moved to leave, thanking the Inhuman inventor on his way out. He stopped in the doorway and spun around, "I might need Peter's help on this. He helped me navigate New York today." At Tony's confused look, Eddie explained "I wanted to teach him a thing or two about investigations and show him that having powers doesn't mean you have to be a superhero or supervillain. I went into this story thinking it was gonna be a puff peace, maybe I'd open people's eyes to the fact that having powers doesn't mean you should be denied a normal life. I thought I was gonna show people that, starting with Peter. Instead, I wound up giving him a lesson in corruption and showed him a new kind of bad guy."

"He is a good kid."

"Yeah, he is. I gave him some homework, just a bit of self-reflection. Told him to make a list of everything he's done that's had an impact on someone else and follow the impact then make a list of the impact that either his actions or their consequences had on him. I asked him to make separate lists for Peter Parker and Spider-Man. I'm hoping he'll see he doesn't need to be Spider-Man to be a great person, or at least look at what being Spider-Man can and has cost Peter Parker so he can find balance. I also told him how I got Venom, I thought that'd be enough of a lesson on corruption."

"You are trying."

Eddie came back into the room "How did things go with Harley?"

"He was disappointed to find his suit was weaponless and plain," Bruce answered as he joined them "Tony, you've been in the lab too long. Time to go." Tony nodded and all three of them went upstairs. The other mentors were already there, Crystal explaining how her plan to help Dante deal with everyday stress almost backfired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were a few ways this could've gone, I tried to pick the best one. The moral of the story, showing Peter that he doesn't have to be Spider-Man just because he has powers got a bit derailed but I think Eddie managed a nice save.


	19. Marvel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carol and Kamala

Kamala was super excited for her one-on-one day with the Captain Marvel. Carol took her down to the agility course "Uh, what are we doing here? I thought this was for a test my team already passed."

"This agility course serves multiple purposes. We can use this for situational awareness."

"Situational awareness?"

"In a fight, it's easy to get tunnel vision, to lock onto the fight and ignore your surroundings but we'll get to that later in the program. Today, we're working on focusing. Getting distracted in a high risk situation can have fatal consequences. The goal of this program is to teach you before you find yourself in a situation where lives are on the line."

"Right."

Carol picked up her pupil and flew her up to the main beam on the jungle gym like agility course. "Put your feet down and try to balance. Before the program started, every one of us mentors ran the course without using our powers or special equipment. You don’t need to stretch to balance."

"Okay." Kamala had a bit of trouble.

"Don’t worry if it takes a few tries. None of us got it on the first try. Just breathe." Carol walked Kamala through some breathing exercises, the young Inhuman followed her example and managed to steady herself. Carol carefully landed in front of Kamala. "Focus on balancing and breathing. If you can do this, you can do anything. Tony designed and built this course, and it still took weeks before he could successfully run the course. Don’t stress yourself out. Stay calm and breathe."

"Is this all we’re doing today?"

"Balance is important, so is focus. We’re going to advance at your pace. If you're asking about combat training, that's part of team training. I can add to it but you have to wait until your team gets to that part of the program."

"Right."

"Just breathe and balance."

Kamala felt silly but Captain Marvel was right about balance being important and tricky. She advanced to taking a few steps forward before time ran out. "You did great today." Carol gave her a bag on the way back up "We each packed one for our mentees. Tony provided a Stark phone with everyone’s numbers pre-programmed."

"Awesome. Thanks, Cap."

"Not a problem."

"What's this?" Kamala pulled out a handheld.

"Kree translator."

"Really?"

"Yup." Carol showed her how to use it. "Tony reverse engineered it from my old Starforce uniform, which is why the default is English not Kree."

"So cool. Thanks."

"You’re welcome." Kamala was dropped off on the Young Avengers floor after hugging Carol tightly.


	20. Afghanistan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iron Man's origin story

All his life, Tony had been told not to talk. Decades later, Tony could clearly remember the day Mira told him why he could never speak even as almost everyone else in his life tried to make him. Being mute had its advantages, people ignored him, underestimated him. The disadvantages were much the same, people dismissed him, abused him. It took a long time for Tony to get it through his head that he deserved none of it. He deserved to be valued for who he is, for everything he is. When the convoy was attacked and Tony saw Stane Tech on the missile, he had to breathe deeply because he really wanted to say some bad words and that would kill the remaining good soldiers, including Rhodey, the man who taught Tony his worth.

The first time he woke up, he was tied to a chair with a bright light shining in his eyes and men with guns surrounding him, someone was yelling in a language he only vaguely knew. He had heard the language from interpreters, must be the local language. As the fog cleared, Tony remembered his voice was not his only power. He remembered his father, remembered Howard Stark pinning him to a table, hands twisted in a painful position as the man all but yelled at him to say something, telling him he just has to ask and it'll stop. Edwin Jarvis had tried to talk some sense into Sir and knowing he was too far gone, too drunk to think clearly enough take that advice, Tony wrenched his hands free. He was a lot stronger than he had given himself credit for and Howard was sent to the ground. While Edwin attended to Sir, Mira hustled Tony away, telling him he didn't do anything wrong, that protecting people was always the right thing to do. That advice had led Tony to replace SI weapons with SI armor when he pulled out of the weapons business. He could easily get out of these restraints but then what? The yelling voice gave an order and Tony very belatedly realized the light was for a camera as someone hit him hard. They wanted him to talk; another, more hesitant voice told him "Say hello to Obadiah Stane." Tony shook his head very carefully. When a few more hits and even a stabbing couldn't loosen his lips, the terrorists gave up. A bag was put back over his head before someone slammed the butt of a gun into his head.

The next time he woke up, he was dangling from chains as a man who kind of looked like a professor or something other than a militia man stitched his wound. "You should do what they say." Tony shook his head, he couldn't do it. "Talking is the least of your problems." Tony nodded his head to the professor's mouth then shook his head. "Do you mean to tell me you cannot physically talk?" His answer was a slow nod. "Then things will only get worse for you from here on." Shrug. "They will probably give up on the talking but they will not give up on forcing your compliance." Tony nodded his head to the man and gave a questioning look. "Who am I?" Nod. "My name is Dr. Ho Yinsen, we met once at a New Year's Eve party in Bern. You were a speaker at a conference." Tony's lips curved into a humorous grin. "I often thought the same thing when I hear of you speaking." Dr. Yinsen finished his work and gave Tony an apologetic look before the terrorists came back in. More of the same demands he speak for the camera and beatings, although there were more weapons involved this time and he wasn't knocked out before Yinsen stitched him up. The terrorists seemed to give up on him speaking, as Yinsen predicted, but they did hustle him outside and the leader showed off his stash of Stane Tech weapons with Yinsen translating "Stark Industries was always much better, they hope you will forgive their dramatics but they had to make it look good for Mr. Stane. He wants you dead but they want more Stark weapons. Don't answer." Tony looked around, there were a few old SI armaments mixed in with Stane's, some of the latter had fake SI logos on them. Yinsen waited for him to take it all in before telling him "They will provide whatever resources you need to build them weapons. Nod if you understand your duty to them." Tony slowly nodded and he was taken back inside. He frantically pointed between Yinsen and himself, hoping the 'I need him' was clearly telegraphed, which it thankfully was. Yinsen translated for both Tony and the terrorist leader, enabling the former to tell the latter what he needed to work.

Tony was sure that Yinsen had intentionally messed up the translation at the end of the pitch when he said "Nod if you understand your duty to them." His duty to them was to destroy them, he had made a life of protecting people. They had no clocks, Tony and Yinsen convinced the terrorists to give them a timer but that request was initially refused. One day- or was it night outside?- their captors burst into the room, dragging Yinsen away and pointing guns at the inventor. The door was sealed with just him and the insurgent leader, who had a chain in addition to his gun. Tony was very confused and watched the other man inspect the space. He had refused to draw blueprints, claiming via Yinsen that he did his best work when he wasn't bogged down with drafting. There was nothing to suggest what he was actually building, although he had requested modern Stark tech, claiming Stane Tech had bad wiring. Luckily SI still made guidance systems that were compatible with Stane Tech, it wasn't too much of a stretch.

There was nothing incriminating the terrorist could see but Tony realized too late that he was not actually looking as the chain hit his back, knocking him over. He was whipped as the terrorist said something about taking them for fools, Tony was wrenched off the ground by the man "You will keep your word, Mr. Stark." Tony nodded frantically. "Or I will personally kill the doctor." Shit, the man saw right through him. He and Yinsen moved much faster, focusing on the weapons for the suit. Tony found a way to subtly block the cameras so they could make the most of their time, the insurgents who took Yinsen had waterboarded him and warned him not to waste time. If Yinsen wasn't there then those men wouldn't have time to be wasted. Laying down hurt, the insurgent leader had ordered a beating after the whipping to ensure it. The suit was finished in record time and Tony had them work with the scraps to buy time for the upload but it wasn't enough. Yinsen had followed him out and neither of them knew the caves very well, he was shot less than twenty feet from the exit. Tony ground his teeth to keep from screaming and instead settled for simply blowing up the entire mountain by shooting one of his godfather's products.


End file.
